Writing
A good many young writers make the mistake of enclosing a stamped, self-addressed envelope, big enough for the manuscript to come back in. This is too much of a temptation to the editor.
- Ring Lardner
- Ring Lardner
There are a lot of people who can't write and maybe shouldn't write.
- Sarah Hepola
- Sarah Hepola
The novel we sit down to write, and the one we end up writing may be very different, just as the Jesus we grasp and the Jesus who grasps us may also differ.
- Madeleine L'Engle
- Madeleine L'Engle
A word is a bud attempting to become a twig. How can one not dream while writing? It is the pen which dreams. The blank page gives the right to dream.
- Bachelard, Gaston
- Bachelard, Gaston
You write with ease to show your breeding, But easy writing’s vile hard reading.
- Richard Brinsley Sheridan
- Richard Brinsley Sheridan
NOSE, n. The extreme outpost of the face. From the circumstance that great conquerors have great noses, Getius, whose writings antedate the age of humor, calls the nose the organ of quell. It has been observed that one's nose is never so happy as when thrust into the affairs of others, from which some physiologists have drawn the inference that the nose is devoid of the sense of smell. There's a man with a Nose, And wherever he goes The people run from him and shout: "No cotton have we For our ears if so be He blow that interminous snout!" So the lawyers applied For injunction. "Denied," Said the Judge: "the defendant prefixion, Whate'er it portend, Appears to transcend The bounds of this court's jurisdiction." Arpad Singiny
- Ambrose Bierce
- Ambrose Bierce
Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything that is beautiful; for beauty is God's handwriting -- a wayside sacrament. Welcome it in every fair face, in every fair sky, in every fair flower, and thank God for it as a cup of blessing.
- Emerson, Ralph Waldo
- Emerson, Ralph Waldo
All good writing is swimming under water and holding your breath.
The Twist was a guided missile, launched from the ghetto into the very heart of suburbia. The Twist succeeded, as politics, religion, and law could never do, in writing in the heart and soul what the Supreme Court could only write on the books.
- Cleaver, Eldridge
- Cleaver, Eldridge
At least half the mystery novels published violate the law that the solution, once revealed, must seem to be inevitable.
- Raymond Chandler
- Raymond Chandler
The time to begin writing an article is when you have finished it to your satisfaction. By that time you begin to clearly and logically perceive what it is you really want to say.
- Mark Twain
- Mark Twain
Always be nice to those younger than you, because they are the ones who will be writing about you.
- Cyril Connolly
- Cyril Connolly
You ask me why I do not write something....I think one's feelings waste themselves in words, they ought all to be distilled into actions and into actions which bring results.
- Florence Nightingale
- Florence Nightingale
It's not about the writing. It's about the feelings behind the words.
- Takayuki Ikkaku, Arisa Hosaka and Toshihiro Kawabata
- Takayuki Ikkaku, Arisa Hosaka and Toshihiro Kawabata
Writing a novel without being asked seems a bit like having a baby when you have nowhere to live.
- Ellman, Lucy
- Ellman, Lucy
I didn't lie--I was writing fiction in my mouth.
- Homer Simpson
- Homer Simpson
Even writers need relief from words.
- Sarah Vowell
- Sarah Vowell
Good writing excites me, and makes life worth living.
- Pinter, Harold
- Pinter, Harold
Every writing career starts as a personal quest for sainthood, for self-betterment. Sooner or later, and as a rule quite soon, a man discovers that his pen accomplishes a lot more than his soul.
- Brodsky, Joseph
- Brodsky, Joseph
This is the challenge of writing. You have to be very emotionally engaged in what youÆre doing, or it comes out flat. You canÆt fake your way through this.
- Real Live Preacher
- Real Live Preacher


















