writing

1.

The story I am writing exists, written in absolutely perfect fashion, some place in the air. All must do is find it, and copy it.

- Jules Reynard

2.

Against the disease of writing one must take special precautions, since it is a dangerous and contagious disease.

- Peter Abelard

3.

If I had to give young writers advice, I would say don't listen to writers talking about writing or themselves.

- Hellman, Lillian

4.

Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything beautiful. Beauty is God's handwriting--a way-side sacrament; welcome it in every fair face, every fair sky, every fair flower, and thank Him for it, who is the Fountain of all loveliness, and drink it in simply and earnestly with all your eyes; it is a charmed draught, a cup of blessing.

- True Words to Brave Men. 1844.

5.

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

6.

Writing is the only thing that, when I do it, I don't feel I should be doing something else.

- Steinem, Gloria

7.

Easy reading is damn hard writing.

- Nathaniel Hawthorne

8.

It's not about the writing. It's about the feelings behind the words.

- Takayuki Ikkaku, Arisa Hosaka and Toshihiro Kawabata

9.

You write with ease to show your breeding But easy writing is cursed hard reading.

- Benjamin Franklin

10.

I think people want their illusions and writers are mostly illusion. When you read their words, you read a flattened, incomplete version of the writer.

- Real Live Preacher

11.

A talent for drama is not a talent for writing, but is an ability to articulate human relationships.

- Vidal, Gore

12.

When all things are equal, translucence in writing is more effective than transparency, just as glow is more revealing than glare.

- Thurber, James

13.

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

- Bacon, Francis

14.

There is a set of religious, or rather moral, writings which teach that virtue is the certain road to happiness, and vice to misery in this world. A very wholesome and comfortable doctrine, and to which we have but one objection, namely, that it is not true.

- Fielding, Henry

15.

Writing in English is the most ingenious torture ever devised for sins committed in previous lives. The English reading public explains the reason why.

- Joyce, James

16.

Writing criticism is to writing fiction and poetry as hugging the shore is to sailing in the open sea.

- Updike, John

17.

Clutter is the disease of American writing. We are a society strangling in unnecessary words, circular constructions, pompous frills and meaningless jargon.

- Zinsser, William

18.

If a young writer can refrain from writing, he shouldn't hesitate to do so.

- Andre Gide

19.

When writing a novel that's pretty much entirely what life turns into:'House burned down. Car stolen. Cat exploded. Did 1500 easy words, so all in all it was a pretty good day.'

- Neil Gaiman

20.

All a good letter has to do is make you feel special.

- Takayuki Ikkaku, Arisa Hosaka and Toshihiro Kawabata