Writing Quotes - page 97

I'm not the world's greatest expert, but I would have thought that the wizards, witches, trolls, unicorns,... broomsticks and spells would have given her a clue?' - when J. K. Rowling insisted she wasn't writing fantasy. (Terry Pratchett)
They think written words are even more powerful,' whispered the toad. ‘They think all writing is magic. Words worry them. See their swords? They glow blue in the presence of lawyers. View quote
Terry Pratchett
You can't build a plot out of jokes. You need tragic relief. And you need to let people know that when a lot of frightened people are running around with edged weaponry, there are deaths. Stupid deaths, usually. I'm not writing 'The A-Team' - if there's a fight going on, people will get hurt. Not letting this happen would be a betrayal. View quote
Terry Pratchett
[Science fiction is] out in the mainstream now. You can tell by the way mainstream literary authors pillage SF while denying they're writing it! View quote
Terry Pratchett
I'm really serious about this writing thing. What time I haven't been writing, I've been reading: Thomas Wolfe, if you know who he is. His writing is mostly built about the central character of a writer, himself. Altho it's fiction, it deals with his life and experiences. In my opinion, little as it's worth, he is the greatest writer that has lived, Shakespeare included. He is a genius. View quote
James Jones
A story with no moral isn't worth writing; a story with no plot isn't worth reading. And if people get your point before they get your story, you are to hire a soapbox instead. View quote
Marion Zimmer Bradley
Often, in writing, granting the basic skill of writing a literate English sentence-which can no longer be taken for granted even in college graduates-all it takes is determination. View quote
Marion Zimmer Bradley
Writing is one of the most assertive things a person can do. View quote
Jhumpa Lahiri
When I sit down to write, I don't think about writing about an idea or a given message. I just try to write a story which is hard enough. View quote
Jhumpa Lahiri
There's a leveling homogeneity in America today created by television. Each day it passes over the vast land mass, over the states nudging each other like the sovereignties of the Balkans, creating a unifying cloud of aesthetic properties and experience. East and West, North and South are wrapped in a sort of over-soul of images, facts, happenings, celebrities. This debris is as sacred to our current fiction as gossip about the new vicar was to Trollope. And there it is on the page, informing the domestically restless households, father off somewhere, mother chagrined. Sons and daughters writing the books. View quote
Elizabeth Hardwick
He said, for example: "Many people working with the Ouija board or automatic writing receive messages that seem, or purport, to come from historic personages. Often, however, the material is vastly inferior to that which could have been produced by the person in question during his or her earthly existence. Any comparison with the material received to the written books or accounts already existing would immediately show glaring discrepancies. Yet in many instances, the Ouija board operator or the automatic writer is to some extent or other tuning in to a world view, struggling to open roads of perception free enough to perceive an altered version of reality, but not equipped enough through training and temperament, perhaps to express it. . . . (Robert Butts)
Any such material, received through the board, through automatic writing, or voice communication, should be carefully studied. Generally speaking, if your messages claim to originate from famous dead personalities, you can discount them as valid information. In all probability, they are creative fabrications of your own personal subconscious. View quote
Robert Butts
My mother was a strong, domineering woman, probably scared to death of the position she found herself in She was psychotic, attempting suicide several times and scaring the devil out of me as a kid with threats . . . One day [she] would say that she loved me, and the next day she'd scream that she was sorry I'd ever been born -- that I'd ruined her life . . . [She] would often stuff her mouth with cotton and hold her breath, pretending that she was dead, to scare me when I was small. Sometimes she'd tell me she really could walk and during the night she was going to get up, turn on the gas jets, and kill us both. I would be absolutely terrified . . . And yet . . . she encouraged my writing and would tell me that I was a good kid and she didn't know why she acted that way . . . but then she'd do it again. View quote
Robert Butts
A writer never has a vacation. For a writer, life consists of either writing or thinking about writing. View quote
Eugène Ionesco
Understand, I had absolutely no interest in writing; I wanted to be a Writer. View quote
Kate DiCamillo
I didn't know anything about writing a screenplay, but somehow I ended up rewriting a screenplay. View quote
Kate DiCamillo
I'm a crap guitarist and I find it really hard writing on my own. View quote
Siobhan Fahey
I think we've turned into a society of craven cowards. I hope that doesn't offend. Actually, I hope it does offend ... because, you see, I can still remember the shock of the Rushdie Affair 25 years ago. The very idea that anybody could be killed for writing a book was surreal and horrific. Now we take it for granted that if you say the wrong thing about the religion of peace you'll get death threats and you might actually be killed, so you keep your mouth shut if you know what's good for you. All for the sake of tolerance and diversity, of course. View quote
Pat Condell
The Rev. Mr. Hamilton, enjoying my dying agony in imagination, says: "Let the world wait but for a few years at the most, when Death's icy fingers feel for the heartstrings of the boaster, and, as most of his like who have gone before him have done, he will sing another strain.” How shall I characterize the spirit that could prompt the writing of such a sentence? The reverend gentleman "loves his enemies,” and yet he is filled with glee when he thinks of the agonies I shall endure when Death's icy fingers feel for the strings of my heart! Yet I have done him no harm. View quote
Robert G. Ingersoll
All writing is a form of manipulation, of course, but you realize that a plain sentence can actually do so much. View quote
Colm Tóibín
Anyone who works in the arts knows, if you're writing a novel or a play or anything, you have to be ready for someone to say, 'Your time is up.' (Colm Tóibín)
In Ireland, novels and plays still have a strange force. The writing of fiction and the creation of theatrical images can affect life there more powerfully and stealthily than speeches, or even legislation. Imagined worlds can lodge deeply in the private sphere, dislodging much else, especially when the public sphere is fragile. View quote
Colm Tóibín
People love talking about writers as storytellers, but I hate being called that: it suggests I got it from my grandmother or something, when my writing really comes out of silence. If a storyteller came up to me, I'd run away. View quote
Colm Tóibín
Suffering is too strong a word, but writing is serious work. I pull the stuff up from me - it's not as if it's a pleasure. View quote
Colm Tóibín
The failure of The Cable Guy impacted my career. I had to start writing and acting again. View quote
Ben Stiller