Style and Structure are the essence of a book; great ideas are hogwash.
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977) Russian-born American Novelist
Good novels are not written by orthodoxy-sniffers, nor by people who are conscience-stricken about their own orthodoxy. Good novels are written by people who are not frightened.
—George Orwell (1903–50) English Novelist, Journalist
Good writing excites me, and makes life worth living.
—Harold Pinter (1930–2008) British Playwright
The task of an American writer is not to describe the misgivings of a woman taken in adultery as she looks out of a window at the rain but to describe four hundred people under the lights reaching for a foul ball. This is ceremony.
—John Cheever (1912–82) American Novelist, Short-story Writer
A perfectly healthy sentence, it is true, is extremely rare. For the most part we miss the hue and fragrance of the thought; as if we could be satisfied with the dews of the morning or evening without their colors, or the heavens without their azure.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher
Any man who can write a page of living prose adds something to our life, and the man who can, as I can, is surely the last to resent someone who can do it even better. An artist cannot deny art, nor would he want to. A lover cannot deny love.
—Raymond Chandler (1888–1959) American Novelist
It’s very hard to be a gentleman and a writer.
—W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) British Novelist, Short-Story Writer, Playwright
It’s hard enough to write a good drama, it’s much harder to write a good comedy, and it’s hardest of all to write a drama with comedy. Which is what life is.
—Jack Lemmon (1925–2001) American Actor, Musician
Everywhere I go I’m asked if I think the university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don’t stifle enough of them. There’s many a bestseller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.
—Flannery O’Connor (1925–1964) American Novelist
For a creative writer possession of the “truth” is less important than emotional sincerity.
—George Orwell (1903–50) English Novelist, Journalist
The writer must write what he has to say, not speak it.
—Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American Author, Journalist, Short Story Writer
I am paid by the word, so I always write the shortest words possible.
—Bertrand A. Russell (1872–1970) British Philosopher, Mathematician, Social Critic
I never know what I think about something until I read what I’ve written on it.
—William Faulkner (1897–1962) American Novelist
No one who cannot limit himself has ever been able to write.
—Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux (1636–1711) French Poet, Satirist, Literary Critic
Writing saved me from the sin and inconvenience of violence.
—Alice Walker (b.1944) American Novelist, Activist
I can write better than anybody who can write faster, and I can write faster than anybody who can write better.
—A. J. Liebling (1904–63) American Journalist, Press Critic
In this work are exhibited in a very high degree the two most engaging powers of an author. New things are made familiar, and familiar things are made new.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
Writing is the incurable itch that possesses many.
—Juvenal (c.60–c.136 CE) Roman Poet
For me, writing is the only thing that passes the three tests of metier: (1) when I’m doing it, I don’t feel that I should be doing something else instead; (2) it produces a sense of accomplishment and, once in a while, pride; and (3) it’s frightening.
—Gloria Steinem (b.1934) American Feminist, Journalist, Activist, Political Advocate
Writing, at its best, is a lonely life. Organizations for writers palliate the writer’s loneliness, but I doubt if they improve his writing. He grows in public stature as he sheds his loneliness and often his work deteriorates. For he does his work alone and if he is a good enough writer he must face eternity, or the lack of it, each day.
—Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American Author, Journalist, Short Story Writer
Nothing contributes to the entertainment of the reader more, than the change of times and the vicissitudes of fortune.
—Cicero (106BCE–43BCE) Roman Philosopher, Orator, Politician, Lawyer
A good writer is basically a story-teller, not a scholar or a redeemer of mankind.
—Isaac Bashevis Singer (1902–91) Polish-born American Writer, Novelist, Short Story Writer
Writing is to descend like a miner to the depths of the mine with a lamp on your forehead, a light whose dubious brightness falsifies everything, whose wick is in permanent danger of explosion, whose blinking illumination in the coal dust exhausts and corrodes your eyes.
—Blaise Cendrars (1887–1961) Swiss Novelist, Poet, Essayist
Often I think writing is a sheer paring away of oneself leaving always something thinner, barer, more meager.
—Unknown
From the point of view of literature Mr. Kipling is a genius who drops his aspirates. From the point of view of life, he is a reporter who knows vulgarity better than any one has ever known it.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.
—Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American Author, Journalist, Short Story Writer
Yes, it’s hard to write, but it’s harder not to.
—Carl Clinton Van Doren (1885–1950) American Critic, Historian
Writing ought either to be the manufacture of stories for which there is a market demand—a business as safe and commendable as making soap or breakfast foods—or it should be an art, which is always a search for something for which there is no market demand, something new and untried, where the values are intrinsic and have nothing to do with standardized values.
—Willa Cather (1873–1947) American Novelist, Writer
You who write, choose a subject suited to your abilities and think long and hard on what your powers are equal to and what they are unable to perform.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus) (65–8 BCE) Roman Poet
Writing is a question of finding a certain rhythm. I compare it to the rhythms of jazz. Much of the time life is a sort of rhythmic progression of three characters. If one tells oneself that life is like that, one feels it less arbitrary.
—Francoise Sagan (1935–2004) French Novelist, Playwright, Short-Story Writer
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