Writing Quotes

Report writing, like motor - Car driving and love - Making, is one of those activities which almost every Englishman thinks he can do well without instruction. The results are of course usually abominable.

Tom Margerison, "A Random Walk in Science" compiled by R. L. Weber, edited by E. Mendoza

To attract good fortune, spend a new coin on an old friend, share an old pleasure with a new friend, and lift up the heart of a true friend by writing his name on the wings of a dragon.

Chinese Prove

When one is grateful for something too good for common thanks, writing is less unsatisfactory than speech - One does not, at least, hear how inadequate the words are.

George Eliot

Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards.

Robert Heinlein

Writing in English is the most ingenious torture ever devised for sins commited in previous lives.

James Joyce

In the modern world, in which thousands of people are dying every hour as a consequence of politics, no writing anywhere can begin to be credible unless it is informed by political awareness and principles. Writers who have neither product utopian trash.

John Berge

Major writing is to say what has been seen, so that it need never be said again.

Delmore Schwartz

Writing, I think, is not apart from living. Writing is a kind of double living. The writer experiences everything twice. Once in reality and once in the mirror which waits always before or behind.

Catherine Drinker Bowen

There are so many opportunities in life, that the loss of two or three capabilities is not necessarily debilitating. A handicap can give you the opportunity to focus more on art, writing, or music.

Jim Davis

When I read some of the rules for speaking and writing the English language correctly... I think - - Any fool can make a rule And every fool will mind it.

Henry David Thoreau

Of writing well the source and fountainhead is wise thinking.

Horace

Yes, there is a Nirvanah; it is leading your sheep to a green pasture, and in putting your child to sleep, and in writing the last line of your poem.

Kahlil Gibran, Essay on Robert Frost, quoted in N. Y.. Times: Obit - Editorial, April 1982

I have never thought of writing for reputation and honor. What I have in my heart must come out; that is the reason why I compose.

Ludwig van Beethoven

In the next year or so, my signature will appear on 60 billion of United States currency. More important to me, however, is the signature that appears on my life - The strong, proud, assertive handwriting of a loving father and mother.

Katherine D. Ortega

Arranging a bowl of flowers in the morning can give a sense of quiet in a crowded day - Like writing a poem, or saying a prayer.

Anne Morrow Lindbergh

There is an art of reading, as well as an art of thinking, and an art of writing.

Benjamin Disraeli

No nation ancient or modern ever lost the liberty of freely speaking, writing, or publishing their sentiments, but forthwith lost their liberty in general and became slaves.

John Peter Zenge

God is love, but get it in writing.

Gypsy Rose Lee

If you would not be forgotten, as soon as you are rotten, either write things worth reading or do things worth the writing.

Benjamin Franklin

Writing is a solitary occupation. Family, friends, and society are the natural enemies of the writer. He must be alone, uninterrupted, and slightly savage if he is to sustain and complete an undertaking.

Jessamyn West

The secret of good writing is to say an old thing in a new way or to say a new thing in an old way.

Richard Harding Davis

Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man.

Sir Francis Bacon

Literature is the art of writing something that will be read twice; journalism what will be read once.

Cyril Connolly, Enemies of Promise (1938)

Real seriousness in regard to writing is one of two absolute necessities. The other, unfortunately, is talent.

Ernest Hemingway

True glory consists in doing what deserves to be written in writing what deserves to be read and in so living as to make the world happier for our living in it.

Pliny the Elde

Learn as much by writing as by reading.

Lord Acton

Literature is the art of writing something that will be read twice journalism what will be grasped at once.

Cyril Connolly

Never be entirely idle; but either be reading, or writing, or praying or meditating or endeavoring something for the public good.

Thomas a Kempis

A writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.

Thomas Mann

If you would not be forgotten as soon as you are dead, either write something worth reading or do things worth writing.

Benjamin Franklin

Writing is easy. All you do is stare at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead.

Gene Fowle

This is the challenge of writing. You have to be very emotionally engaged in what you? re doing, or it comes out flat. You can? t fake your way through this.

Real Live Preacher, RealLivePreacher. com Weblog, January 29, 2004

Writing is hard work and bad for the health.

E. B. White

Good writing takes more than just time; it wants your best moments and the best of you.

Real Live Preacher, RealLivePreacher. com weblog, 10 - 09 - 04

You know what I say to people when I hear they? re writing an anti - war book?? I say, why don? t you write an anti - Glacier book instead? What he meant, of course, was that there would always be wars, that they were as easy to stop as glaciers. I believe that, too.

Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughter - House 5

Writing has laws of perspective, of light and shade just as painting does, or music. If you are born knowing them, fine. If not, learn them. Then rearrange the rules to suit yourself.

Truman Capote

Vigorous writing is concise.

William Strunk Jr., "The Elements of Style", 1919