Writing well is difficult, but one can always write something. And then, with a lot of work, make it better.
– Thomas Mallon
Tag: writing
Quotable 88
Every writer I know has trouble writing.
– Joseph Heller
Quotable 87
I now think of writing as a privilege – as a gift that’s been given to me. Any day that I don’t get to write something – anything – is a day I have to spend being someone other than who I am.
– Larry Gelbart
Quotable 80
I went to college, but I learned to write by reading and writing.
– Daniel Pinkwater
Quotable 55
It is necessary to write, if the days are not to slip emptily by. How else, indeed, to clap the net over the butterfly of the moment? For the moment passes, it is forgotten; the mood is gone; life itself is gone. That is where the writer scores over his fellows: he catches the changes of his mind on the hop.
– Vita Sackville-West
Pen to Paper: Writing by the Rules
A recent Quotable was amusing (and Greg’s comment even moreso), but it pointed to a simple truth: there is no formula for good writing. It is more art than science.
Pen to Paper: Books about Writing
Quotable 41
There is no royal path to good writing; and such paths as do exist do not lead through neat critical gardens, various as they are, but through the jungles of self, the world, and of craft.
– Jessamyn West
Quotable 35
Simplicity of language is not only reputable, but perhaps even sacred. The Bible opens with a sentence well within the writing skills of a lively fourteen-year-old: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.”
– Kurt Vonnegut
Quotable 32
Whenever I have endured or accomplished some difficult task — such as watching television, going out socially or sleeping — I always look forward to rewarding myself with the small pleasure of getting back to my typewriter and writing something.
– Isaac Asimov