Once you begin to take yourself seriously as a leader or as a follower, as a modern or as a conservative, then you become a self-conscious, biting, and scratching little animal whose work is not of the slightest value or importance to anybody.
Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English modernist writer [b. Adeline Virginia Stephen]
“A Letter to a Young Poet,” The Death of the Moth and Other Essays (1942)
Quotations about:
writing
Note not all quotations have been tagged, so Search may find additional quotes on this topic.
Remember that, sooner or later, before it ever reaches perfection, you will have to let it go and move on and start to write the next thing. Perfection is like chasing the horizon. Keep moving.
Neil Gaiman (b. 1960) British author, screenwriter, fabulist
In “Ten Rules for Writing Fiction,” The Guardian (20 Feb 2010)
(Source)
Readers usually grossly underestimate their own importance. If a reader cannot create a book along with the writer, the book will never come to life. Creative involvement: that’s the difference between reading a book and watching TV. In watching TV, we are passive — sponges; we do nothing. In reading, we must become creators, imagining the setting of the story, seeing the facial expressions, hearing the inflection of the voices. The author and the reader “know” each other; they meet on the bridge of words.
Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer
Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art (1982)
Remember: when people tell you something’s wrong or doesn’t work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong.
Neil Gaiman (b. 1960) British author, screenwriter, fabulist
In “Ten Rules for Writing Fiction,” The Guardian (20 Feb 2010)
(Source)
Great writing is the world’s cheapest special effect.
Teresa Nielsen Hayden (b. 1956) American editor, writer, essayist
Making Light, “Commonplaces”
(Source)
Among the tortures and devastations of life is this then — our friends are not able to finish their stories.
Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English modernist writer [b. Adeline Virginia Stephen]
The Waves (1931)
The only happy author in this world is he who is below the care of reputation.
Washington Irving (1783–1859) American author [pseud. for Geoffrey Crayon]
Tales of a Traveler, Part 2 “The Poor-Devil Author” (1824)
The most original modern authors are not so because they advance what is new, but simply because they know how to put what they have to say, as if it had never been said before.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German poet, statesman, scientist
“The Poet’s Year,” A Criticism of the Poems of J. H. Voss (1804) [tr. Austin]
(Source)
Literature is strewn with the wreckage of men who have minded beyond reason the opinions of others.
Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English modernist writer [b. Adeline Virginia Stephen]
A Room of One’s Own, ch. 3 (1929)
Be without fear. This is impossible, but let the small fears drive your rewriting and set aside the large ones until they behave — then use them, maybe even write them. Too much fear and all you’ll get is silence.
Alison Louise "A. L." Kennedy (b. 1965) Scottish writer and comedian
In “Ten Rules for Writing Fiction,” The Guardian (20 Feb 2010)
(Source)
Those authors into whose hands nature has placed a magic wand, with which they no sooner touch us than we forget the unhappiness in life, than the darkness leaves our soul, and we are reconciled to existence, should be placed among the benefactors of the human race.
Denis Diderot (1713–1784) French editor, philosopher
(Attributed)
Attributed in Maturin M. Ballou, Treasury of Thought (1884 ed.).
Write. No amount of self-inflicted misery, altered states, black pullovers or being publicly obnoxious will ever add up to your being a writer. Writers write. On you go.
Alison Louise "A. L." Kennedy (b. 1965) Scottish writer and comedian
In “Ten Rules for Writing Fiction,” The Guardian (20 Feb 2010)
(Source)
We should have a glorious conflagration if all who cannot put fire into their works would only consent to put their works into the fire.
Charles Caleb "C. C." Colton (1780–1832) English cleric, writer, aphorist
Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Vol. 1, Preface (1820)
(Source)
Trust your reader. Not everything needs to be explained. If you really know something, and breathe life into it, they’ll know it too.
Esther Freud (b. 1963) British novelist, actress
In “Ten Rules for Writing Fiction,” The Guardian (20 Feb 2010)
(Source)
Imagine that you are dying. If you had a terminal disease would you finish this book? Why not? The thing that annoys this 10-weeks-to-live self is the thing that is wrong with the book. So change it. Stop arguing with yourself. Change it. See? Easy. And no one had to die.
Anne Enright (b. 1962) Irish writer
In “Ten Rules for Writing Fiction,” The Guardian (20 Feb 2010)
(Source)
There are three difficulties in authorship; — to write any thing worth the publishing — to find honest men to publish it — and to get sensible men to read it.
Charles Caleb "C. C." Colton (1780–1832) English cleric, writer, aphorist
Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Vol. 1, Preface (1820)
(Source)
A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.
Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English modernist writer [b. Adeline Virginia Stephen]
A Room of One’s Own, ch. 1 (1929)
Only bad writers think that their work is really good.
Anne Enright (b. 1962) Irish writer
In “Ten Rules for Writing Fiction,” The Guardian (20 Feb 2010)
(Source)
While an author is yet living we estimate his powers by his worst performance, and when he is dead we rate them by his best.
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer, lexicographer, critic
The Plays of William Shakespeare, Preface (1765)
The way to write a book is to actually write a book. A pen is useful, typing is also good. Keep putting words on the page.
Anne Enright (b. 1962) Irish writer
In “Ten Rules for Writing Fiction,” The Guardian (20 Feb 2010)
(Source)
I am strongly of opinion that an author had far better not read any reviews of his books: the unfavourable ones are almost certain to make him cross, and the favourable ones conceited; and neither of these results is desirable.
Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) English writer and mathematician [pseud. of Rev. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson]
Sylvie and Bruno (1889)
I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman.
Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English modernist writer [b. Adeline Virginia Stephen]
A Room of One’s Own, ch. 3 (1929)
Open your mind to new experiences, particularly to the study of other people. Nothing that happens to a writer — however happy, however tragic — is ever wasted.
P. D. James (1920–2014) British mystery writer [Phyllis Dorothy James White]
In “Ten Rules for Writing Fiction,” The Guardian (20 Feb 2010)
(Source)
About the most originality that enny writer kan hope tew arrive at honestly, now-a-days, is tew steal with good judgment.
[About the most originality that any writer can hope to arrive at honestly, nowadays, is to steal with good judgment.]
Josh Billings (1818–1885) American humorist, aphorist [pseud. of Henry Wheeler Shaw]
Josh Billings on Ice, and Other Things, ch. 41 “Orphan Children” (1868)
(Source)
Variant: "About the most originality that any writer can hope to achieve honestly is to steal with good judgment."
KEATING: Now, language was developed for one endeavor, and that is? Mr. Anderson? Come on! Are you a man or an amoeba? Mr. Perry?
NEIL: Uh, to communicate.
KEATING: No! To woo women!
You can’t learn to write in college. It’s a very bad place for writers because the teachers always think they know more than you do — and they don’t.
Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) American writer, futurist, fabulist
Interview with Sam Geller, “The Art of Fiction, No. 203,” The Paris Review (Spring 2010)
(Source)
Do keep a thesaurus, but in the shed at the back of the garden or behind the fridge, somewhere that demands travel or effort. Chances are the words that come into your head will do fine, e.g., “horse”, “ran”, “said”.
Roddy Doyle (b. 1958) Irish novelist, dramatist, screenwriter
In “Ten Rules for Writing Fiction,” The Guardian (20 Feb 2010)
(Source)
Wanting to meet an author because you like his work is like wanting to meet a duck because you like paté.
Margaret Atwood (b. 1939) Canadian writer, literary critic, environmental activist
Negotiating with the Dead, ch. 2 “Duplicity: The jekyll hand, the hyde hand, and the slippery double” (2002)
(Source)
Usually directly attributed to Atwood, but she made it clear that it was not hers:There's an epigram tacked to my office bulletin board, pinched from a magazine -- [the quotation]. That's a light enough comment upon the disappointments of encountering the famous, or even the moderately well-known -- they are always shorter and older and more ordinary than you expected -- but there's a more sinister way of looking at it as well. In order for the paté to be made and then eaten, the duck must first be killed. And who is it that does the killing?
If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.
Elmore Leonard (1925–2013) American novelist and screenwriter
In Newsweek (22 Apr 1985)
I remember Castelnau: like me Ambassador to England, who wrote like me a narrative of his life in London. On the last page of Book VII, he says to his son: “I will deal with this event in Book VIII,” and Book VIII of Castelnau’s Memoirs does not exist: that warns me to take advantage of being alive.
François-René de Chateaubriand (1768–1848) French writer, politican, diplomat
Memoirs from Beyond the Grave [Mémoires d’Outre-Tombe], Book 6, ch. 8 (1848-1850) [tr. Kline]
One picture in ten thousand, perhaps, ought to live in the applause of mankind, from generation to generation until the colors fade and blacken out of sight or the canvas rot entirely away.
Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864) American writer
The Marble Faun (1860)
Think before you speak is criticism’s motto; speak before you think, creation’s.
E. M. Forster (1879–1970) English novelist, essayist, critic, librettist [Edward Morgan Forster]
“The Raison d’E’tre of Criticism in the Arts,” Two Cheers for Democracy (1951)
Science fiction is also a great way to pretend you are writing about the future when in reality you are attacking the recent past and the present.
Composition is, for the most part, an effort of slow diligence and steady perseverance, to which the mind is dragged by necessity or resolution, and from which the attention is every moment starting to more delightful amusements.
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer, lexicographer, critic
Essay (1754-03-02), The Adventurer, No. 138
(Source)
Ink and paper are sometimes passionate lovers, oftentimes brother and sister, and occasionally mortal enemies.
Terri Guillemets (b.1973) American quotation anthologist
(Attributed)
We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect.
Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) Catalan-Cuban-French author, diarist
(Attributed)
Digression is the soul of wit. Take the philosophic asides away from Dante, Milton or Hamlet’s father’s ghost and what stays is dry bones.
Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) American writer, futurist, fabulist
Fahrenheit 451, “Coda” Afterword (1979 ed.)
(Source)
A play on Shakespeare's words.
Do not imagine you can exorcise what oppresses you in life by giving vent to it in art.
Gustave Flaubert (1821–1880) French writer, novelist
Letter to Louise Colet (25 Nov 1853)
The original writer is not he who refrains from imitating others, but he who can be imitated by none.
[L’écrivain original n’est pas celui qui n’imite personne, mais celui que personne ne peut imiter.]
François-René de Chateaubriand (1768–1848) French writer, politican, diplomat
The Genius of Christianity [Le génie du Christianisme], Part 2, Book 1, ch. 3 (1802)
(Source)
Other translations:
- "The original style is not the style which never borrows of any one, but that which no other person is capable of reproducing." [tr. White (1856)]
- "An original writer is not one who imitates nobody, but one whom nobody can imitate."
Art is a jealous mistress, and, if a man have a genius for painting, poetry, music, architecture, or philosophy, he makes a bad husband and an ill provider.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
Essay (1860), “Wealth,” The Conduct of Life, ch. 3
(Source)
Based on a course of lectures, "The Conduct of Life," delivered in Pittsburg (1851-03).
Do not place a photograph of your favourite author on your desk, especially if the author is one of the famous ones who committed suicide.
Roddy Doyle (b. 1958) Irish novelist, dramatist, screenwriter
In “Ten Rules for Writing Fiction,” The Guardian (20 Feb 2010)
(Source)
And yet there is a degree to which […] all literature, highbrow or low, from the Aeneid onward, is fan fiction. […] Through parody and pastiche, allusion and homage, retelling and reimagining the stories that were told before us and that we have come of age loving — amateurs — we proceed, seeking out the blank places in the map that our favorite writers, in their greatness and negligence, have left for us, hoping to pass on to our own readers — should we be lucky enough to find any — some of the pleasure that we ourselves have taken in the stuff we love: to get in the game. All novels are sequels; influence is bliss.
Michael Chabon (b. 1963) American author
“Fan Fictions: On Sherlock Holmes,” Maps and Legends (2008)
Maintaining integrity as a private detective is difficult; to preserve it for the hundred thousand words of a book would be impossible for me, as it has been for so many others. Nothing corrupts a man so deeply as writing a book; the myriad temptations are overwhelming.
Rex Stout (1886–1975) American writer
The Mother Hunt, ch. 9 [Wolfe] (1963)
Writing gives you the illusion of control, and then you realize it’s just an illusion, that people are going to bring their own stuff into it.
David Sedaris (b. 1956) American humorist, comedian, author
Interview, Louisville Courier-Journal (5 Jun 2005)
Perfect works are rare, because they must be produced at the happy moment when taste and genius unite; and this rare conjuncture, like that of certain planets, appears to occur only after the revolution of several cycles, and only lasts for an instant.
François-René de Chateaubriand (1768–1848) French writer, politican, diplomat
(Attributed)
(Source)
Quoted in James Wood, Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern, English and Foreign Sources (1893).
I know you’ve heard it a thousand times before. But it’s true — hard work pays off. If you want to be good, you have to practice, practice, practice. If you don’t love something, then don’t do it.
Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) American writer, futurist, fabulist
(Attributed)
Writing is the only thing that passes the three tests of metier. first, when I’m doing it, I don’t feel that I should be doing something else; second, it produces a sense of accomplishment and, once in a while, pride; and third, it’s frightening.
Gloria Steinem (1934–2026) American feminist, journalist, activist
“What’s in It for Me?”, Harper’s (Nov 1965)
If you can’t read and write you can’t think. Your thoughts are dispersed if you don’t know how to read and write. You’ve got to be able to look at your thoughts on paper and discover what a fool you were.
Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) American writer, futurist, fabulist
“Ray Bradbury is on fire!”, interview with James Hibberd, Salon.com (29 Aug 2001)
(Source)
There is nothing more dreadful to an author than neglect, compared with which reproach, hatred, and opposition are names of happiness; yet this worse, this meanest fate, every one who dares to write has reason to fear.
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer, lexicographer, critic
Source (1750-03-24), The Rambler, No. 2
(Source)
You can never read your own book with the innocent anticipation that comes with that first delicious page of a new book, because you wrote the thing. You’ve been backstage. You’ve seen how the rabbits were smuggled into the hat. Therefore ask a reading friend or two to look at it before you give it to anyone in the publishing business. This friend should not be someone with whom you have a romantic relationship, unless you want to break up.
Margaret Atwood (b. 1939) Canadian writer, literary critic, environmental activist
In “Ten Rules for Writing Fiction,” The Guardian (20 Feb 2010)
(Source)
It amounts to this — Literature is not a mere Science, to be studied; but an Art, to be practised.
Arthur Quiller-Couch (1863–1944). British poet, novelist, scholar, critic
On the Art of Writing, Lecture 12 “On Style,” Cambridge University (28 Jan 1914)
(Source)
In the old times, women did not get their lives written, though I don’t doubt many of them were much better worth writing than the men’s.
Rewriting is like scrubbing the basement floor with a toothbrush.
(Other Authors and Sources)
Pete Murphy
Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.
Scott Adams (b. 1957) American cartoonist
The Dilbert Principle (1996)
Sometimes misquoted as "Design is knowing which ones to keep." Sometimes misattributed to Douglas Adams or Ricky Gervais. More information here.
You don’t always have to go so far as to murder your darlings — those turns of phrase or images of which you felt extra proud when they appeared on the page — but go back and look at them with a very beady eye. Almost always it turns out that they’d be better dead. (Not every little twinge of satisfaction is suspect — it’s the ones which amount to a sort of smug glee you must watch out for.)
Diana Athill (1917–2019) British literary editor, novelist, memoirist
In “Ten Rules for Writing Fiction,” The Guardian (20 Feb 2010)
(Source)
See Quiller-Couch.
Mostly, when I think of pacing, I go back to Elmore Leonard, who explained it so perfectly by saying he just left out the boring parts. This suggests cutting to speed the pace, and that’s what most of us end up having to do (kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart, kill your darlings).
You can’t say, “I won’t write today,” because that excuse will extend into several days, then several months, then … you are not a writer anymore, just someone who dreams about being a writer.
D. C. Fontana (1939–2019) television screenwriter, story editor [Dorothy Catherine Fontana]
(Attributed)
Style, for example, is not — can never be — extraneous Ornament. You remember, may be, the Persian lover whom I quoted to you out of Newman: how to convey his passion he sought a professional letter-writer and purchased a vocabulary charged with ornament, wherewith to attract the fair one as with a basket of jewels. Well, in this extraneous, professional, purchased ornamentation, you have something which Style is not: and if you here require a practical rule of me, I will present you with this: “Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate a piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey it — whole-heartedly — and delete it before sending your manuscript to press. Murder your darlings.”
Arthur Quiller-Couch (1863–1944). British poet, novelist, scholar, critic
On the Art of Writing, Lecture 12 “On Style,” Cambridge University (28 Jan 1914)
(Source)
The writing advice "murder your darlings" or "kill your darlings" has been widely attributed to other writers, including William Faulkner, Allen Ginsburg, Oscar Wilde, and G.K. Chesterton. More information here.
I wrote what I did because as a woman, as a mother I was oppressed and broken-hearted, with the sorrows and injustice I saw, because as a Christian I felt the dishonor to Christianity — because as a lover of my country I trembled at the coming day of wrath. It is no merit in the sorrowful that they weep, or to the oppressed and smothering that they gasp and struggle, not to me, that I must speak for the oppressed — who cannot speak for themselves.
Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811–1896) American author
Letter to Lord Denman (20 Jan 1853)
On Uncle Tom's Cabin.
Advice to persons about to write History: Don’t. […]
In the Moral Sciences Prejudice is Dishonesty.
A Historian has to fight against temptations special to his mode of life, temptations from Country, Class, Church, College, Party, Authority of talents, solicitation of friends.
The most respectable of these influences are the most dangerous.
The historian who neglects to root them out is exactly like a juror who votes according to his personal likes or dislikes.
In judging men and things Ethics go before Dogma, Politics or Nationality.
The Ethics of History cannot be denominational.
Judge not according to the orthodox standard of a system religious, philosophical, political, but according as things promote, or fail to promote the delicacy, integrity, and authority of Conscience.
Put conscience above both System and Success.
History provides neither compensation for suffering nor penalties for wrong.John Dalberg, Lord Acton (1834–1902) British historian, politician, writer
Letter (1887-04-05) to Mandell Creighton
When you feel the story is beginning to pick up rhythm — the characters are shaping up, you can see them, you can hear their voices, and they do things that you haven’t planned, things you couldn’t have imagined — then you know the book is somewhere, and you just have to find it, and bring it, word by word, into this world.
Isabel Allende (b. 1942) Chilean-American writer
In Meredith Maran, ed., Why We Write, ch. 1 (2013)
Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip. Think of what you skip reading a novel: thick paragraphs of prose you can see have too many words in them.
Elmore Leonard (1925–2013) American novelist and screenwriter
In “Ten Rules for Writing Fiction,” The Guardian (20 Feb 2010)
(Source)
A frequent piece of advice from Leonard, e.g.:
- "I leave out the parts that people skip." When asked about the popularity of his detective novels. Quoted in William Zinsser, A Family of Readers (1986)
- "Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip." In "Making It Up as I Go Along," AARP Magazine (Jul/Aug 2009).
There is a popular hallucination that makes of authors a romantic people who are entirely dependent upon moods and moments of inspiration for the power to labor in their peculiar way. Authors are supposed to write when they “feel like it,” and at no other time. Visions of Byron with a gin-bottle at his side, and a beautiful woman hanging over his shoulder, dashing off a dozen stanzas of Childe Harold at a sitting, flit through the brains of sentimental youth. We hear of women who are seized suddenly by an idea, as if it were a colic, or a flea, often at midnight, and are obliged to rise and dispose of it in some way. We are told of very delicate girls who carry pencils and cards with them, to take the names and address of such angels as may visit them in out-of-the-way places. We read of poets who go on long sprees, and after recovery retire to their rooms and work night and day, eating not and sleeping little, and in some miraculous way producing wonderful literary creations. The mind of a literary man is supposed to be like a shallow summer brook, that turns a mill. There is no water except when it rains, and the weather being very fickle, it is never known when there will be water. Sometimes, however, there comes a freshet, and then the mill runs night and day, until the water subsides, and another dry time comes on.
Now, while I am aware, as every writer must be, that the brain works very much better at some times than it does at others, I can declare without reservation, that no man who depends upon moods for the power to write can possibly accomplish much. I know men who rely upon their moods, alike for the disposition and the ability to write, but they are, without exception, lazy and inefficient men. They never have accomplished much, and they never will accomplish much.
J. G. Holland (1819–1881) American novelist, poet, editor [Josiah Gilbert Holland; pseud. Timothy Titcomb]
Lessons in Life, Lesson 1 “Moods and Frames of Mind” (1861) [as Timothy Titcomb]
(Source)
I need to tell a story. It’s an obsession. Each story is a seed inside of me that starts to grow and grow, like a tumor, and I have to deal with it sooner or later. Why a particular story? I don’t know when I begin. That I learn much later. Over the years I’ve discovered that all the stories I’ve told, all the stories I will ever tell, are connected to me in some way.
Isabel Allende (b. 1942) Chilean-American writer
In Meredith Maran, ed., Why We Write, ch. 1 (2013)
I try to write beautifully, but accessibly. In the romance languages, Spanish, French, Italian, there’s a flowery way of saying things that does not exist in English. My husband says he can always tell when he gets a letter in Spanish: the envelope is heavy. In English a letter is a paragraph. You go straight to the point. In Spanish that’s impolite. Reading in English, living in English, has taught me to make language as beautiful as possible, but precise. Excessive adjectives, excessive description — skip it, it’s unnecessary. Speaking English has made my writing less cluttered. I try to read House of the Spirits now, and I can’t. Oh my God, so many adjectives! Why? Just use one good noun instead of three adjectives.
Isabel Allende (b. 1942) Chilean-American writer
In Meredith Maran, ed., Why We Write, ch. 1 (2013)
And now go, and make interesting mistakes, make amazing mistakes, make glorious and fantastic mistakes. Break rules. Leave the world more interesting for your being here. Make good art.
Neil Gaiman (b. 1960) British author, screenwriter, fabulist
Speech (2012-05-17), Commencement, University of the Arts, Philadelphia [19:28]
(Source)
There is no doubt that even the greatest musical geniuses have sometimes worked without inspiration. This guest does not always respond to the first invitation. We must always work, and a self-respecting artist must not fold his hands on the pretext that he is not in the mood. If we wait for the mood, without endeavouring to meet it half-way, we easily become indolent and apathetic. We must be patient, and believe that inspiration will come to those who can master their disinclination.
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840–1893) Russian composer
Letter to N. F. von Meck (15 Mar 1878)
(Source)
The difficulty of literature is not to write, but to write what you mean; not to affect your reader, but to affect him precisely as you wish.
“Reeling and Writhing, of course, to begin with,” the Mock Turtle replied: “and then the different branches of Arithmetic — Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision.”
“I never heard of ‘Uglification,'” Alice ventured to say. “What is it?”
The Gryphon lifted up both its paws in surprise. “Never heard of uglifying!” it exclaimed. “You know what to beautify is, I suppose?”
“Yes,” said Alice, doubtfully: “it means — to — make — anything — prettier.”
“Well then,” the Gryphon went on, “if you don’t know what to uglify is, you are a simpleton.”
Alice did not feel encouraged to ask any more questions about it, so she turned to the Mock Turtle, and said, “What else had you to learn?”
“Well, there was Mystery,” the Mock Turtle replied, counting off the subjects on his flappers, — “Mystery, ancient and modern, with Seaography: then Drawling — the Drawling-master was an old conger-eel, that used to come once a week: he taught us Drawling, Stretching, and Fainting in Coils.”Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) English writer and mathematician [pseud. of Rev. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson]
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, ch. 9 “The Mock Turtle’s Story” (1865)
(Source)
Describing the "regular course" at the school he attended.
I don’t like to write anything down on paper that I would not say to myself.
Joseph Joubert (1754–1824) French moralist, philosopher, essayist, poet
Pensées [Thoughts], 1806 entry [tr. Auster (1983)]
(Source)
I could not find an analog in other translations of the Pensées.
When you write easily, you always think you have more talent than you really do.
[Quand on écrit avec facilité, on croit toujours avoir plus de talent qu’on n’en a.]
Joseph Joubert (1754–1824) French moralist, philosopher, essayist, poet
Pensées [Thoughts], ch. 23 “Des Qualités de l’Écrivain [Of the Qualities of Writers],” ¶ 45 (1804 entry) (1850 ed.) [tr. Auster (1983)]
(Source)
(Source (French)). Other translations:He who writes with ease always thinks that he has more talent than he really has.
[tr. Calvert (1866), ch. 15]When anyone writes with ease, he always believes himself to have more talent than he has.
[tr. Lyttelton (1899), ch. 22, ¶ 13]The fluent author always seems to have more talent than he has.
[tr. Collins (1928), ch. 22]
A person who publishes a book wilfully appears before the populace with his pants down.
Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950) American poet
Letter (1927-05-25) to Cora B. Millay
(Source)
Letter to her mother trying to calm Cora's nerves about sister Kathleen's impending first book of poetry. The letter is collected in Letters of Edna St. Vincent Millay (1952) [ed. Allan Ross MacDougall].
This passage is almost universally misquoted as "A person who publishes a book wilfully appears before the public with his pants down" (italics mine).
Another variant appears here. It shortens the first sentence, and then pulls in (and re-genders) two sentences from later in the letter:A writer appears before the public with his pants down. If it is a good book, nothing can hurt him. If it is a bad book, nothing can help him.
This is perhaps a not unimportant counsel to give to writers: write nothing that does not give you great pleasure; emotion passes easily from writer to reader.
[Ce ne serait peut-être pas un conseil peu important à donner aux écrivains, que celui-ci: n’écrivez jamais rien qui ne vous fasse un grand plaisir; l’émotion se propage aisément de l’écrivain au lecteur.]
Joseph Joubert (1754–1824) French moralist, philosopher, essayist, poet
Pensées [Thoughts], ch. 23 “Des Qualités de l’Écrivain [Of the Qualities of Writers],” ¶ 58 (1850 ed.) [tr. Lyttelton (1899), ch. 22, ¶ 25]
(Source)
(Source (French)). Other translations:This were perhaps not an unimportant advice to give to writers: never write any thing that does not give you great enjoyment; emotion is easily propagated from the writer to the reader.
[tr. Calvert (1866), ch. 15]And perhaps there is no advice to give a writer more important than this: -- Never write anything that does not give you great pleasure.
[tr. Auster (1983)], 1823 entry]
As a fantasy writer, he was not highly regarded (“one cannot call him profoundly mediocre without venturing so far out on the critical limb as to bend it to the ground,” “so derivative that the reader loses track of who he’s ripping off,” “to say he is tin-eared would render a disservice to a blameless citizen of the periodic table of the elements”).
Neal Stephenson (b. 1959) American novelist
Reamde, Part 1 “Nine Dragons – Thanksgiving,” prologue (2011)
(Source)
No man practises so well as he writes. I have, all my life long, been lying till noon; yet I tell all young men, and tell them with great sincerity, that nobody who does not rise early will ever do any good.
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer, lexicographer, critic
Comment (14 Sep 1773), in James Boswell, Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides (1785)
(Source)
Writing is closer to thinking than to speaking.
Joseph Joubert (1754–1824) French moralist, philosopher, essayist, poet
Pensées [Thoughts], 1791 entry [tr. Auster (1983)]
(Source)
I could not find an analog in other translations of the Pensées.
A transition from an author’s book to his conversation, is too often like an entrance into a large city, after a distant prospect. Remotely, we see nothing but spires of temples and turrets of palaces, and imagine it the residence of splendour, grandeur and magnificence; but when we have passed the gates, we find it perplexed with narrow passages, disgraced with despicable cottages, embarrassed with obstructions, and clouded with smoke.
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer, lexicographer, critic
Essay (1750-05-05), The Rambler, No. 14
(Source)
I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read.
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer, lexicographer, critic
In George Birkbeck Hill (ed.), Johnsonian Miscellanies, Vol. 2, “Apophthegms, Sentiments, Opinions, & Occasional Reflections” (1897)
(Source)
When asked by someone whether they should introduce the author Hugh Kelly to him.
Taken from John Hawkins (ed.), Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 11 (1787-1789), and the sources cited there.
Some read to think, these are rare; some to write, these are common; and some read to talk, and these form the great majority.
Charles Caleb "C. C." Colton (1780–1832) English cleric, writer, aphorist
Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Vol. 1, § 554 (1820)
(Source)
First coffee, then a bowel movement. Then the Muse joins me.
Gore Vidal (1925–2012) American novelist, dramatist, critic
“Gore Vidal,” interview by Gerald Clarke (1974)
In The Paris Review Interviews: Writers at Work, 5th series (1981)
Easy reading is damn hard writing.
Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864) American writer
(Attributed)
Also attributed to others, including Ernest Hemingway. The reference to Hawthorne can be dated back to Maya Angelou in "The Art of Fiction," Paris Review, #116, Interview with George Plimpton (1990):Nathaniel Hawthorne says, "Easy reading means damn hard writing."Per Wikiquote, Angelou put it differently previously, in Conversations With Maya Angelou (1989) [ed. Jeffrey M. Elliot]:I think it's Alexander Pope who says, "Easy writing is damn hard reading," and vice versa, easy reading is damn hard writing.
Which first clause may refer in turn not to Pope but Richard Brinsley, Clio's Protest, or the Picture Varnished (1771, pub. 1819):You write with ease, to show your breeding, But easy writing's curst hard reading.
Substitute “damn” every time you’re inclined to write “very”; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.
Mark Twain (1835–1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
(Spurious)
Written as such, I was unable to find any online book reference with the expression prior to 2001, except for a possible 1982 second-hand mention in a Forbes Magazine letter column. Further research (see QI link below) finds the first mention of something substantially like this in 1935, recollecting a similar statement by newspaper editor William Allen White several years before. All post-date Twain's death.For more details, and other variants of this quotation, see Advice Origin: Substitute ‘Damn’ Every Time You’re Inclined to Write ‘Very’ – Quote Investigator®.
No sinner is ever saved after the first twenty minutes of a sermon.
Mark Twain (1835–1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
Hannibal Courier-Post (6 Mar 1835)
I think the most important thing I learned from Stephen King I learned as a teenager, reading King’s book of essays on horror and on writing, Danse Macabre. In there he points out that if you just write a page a day, just 300 words, at the end of a year you’d have a novel. It was immensely reassuring — suddenly something huge and impossible became strangely easy. As an adult, it’s how I’ve written books I haven’t had the time to write, like my children’s novel Coraline.
Neil Gaiman (b. 1960) British author, screenwriter, fabulist
Blog entry (2012-04-28), “Popular Writers: A Stephen King Interview”
(Source)
Contributor's note to an interview with Stephen King, "The King and I," Sunday Times Magazine (2012-04-08).
A work is perfectly finished only when nothing can be added to it and nothing taken away.
Joseph Joubert (1754–1824) French moralist, philosopher, essayist, poet
Pensées [Thoughts], 1809 entry [tr. Auster (1983)]
(Source)
I could not find an analog in other translations of the Pensées.
And I wanted someone who is absolutely and utterly powerful. It’s interesting because at the time, John Byrne had just taken over Superman and had announced that he was making Superman less powerful because he had become too powerful and you couldn’t write interesting stories about people that were too powerful. That started me thinking, “Well, no, actually you can, because what makes a person interesting or not interesting isn’t how powerful they are, but who they are.
Neil Gaiman (b. 1960) British author, screenwriter, fabulist
“Alan Moore got to be the Beatles. … I was Gerry and the Pacemakers,” Interview, Los Angeles Times (2008-12-02)
On creating Morpheus, the Sandman.
I met, not long ago, a young man who aspired to become a novelist. Knowing that I was in the profession, he asked me to tell him how he should set to work to realize his ambition. I did my best to explain. “The first thing,” I said, “is to buy quite a lot of paper, a bottle of ink, and a pen. After that you merely have to write.”
Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) English novelist, essayist and critic
“Sermons in Cats,” Music at Night and Other Essays (1931)
(Source)
The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.
Mark Twain (1835–1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
Mark Twain’s Speeches, Introduction [ed W.D. Howells (1923 ed.)]
Dear sire, and offspring worthy of your fire!
We bards are dupes to what ourselves admire.
Would I be brief — I grow confused and coarse;
Who aims at smoothness, fails in fire and force;
In him who soars aloft, bombast is found;
Who fears to face the tempest, crawls aground.
Who courts variety and fain would ring
A thousand changes on the self-same string,
Will paint, as ’twere in fancy’s wildest mood
Boars in the wave and dolphins in the wood.
Thus even error, shun’d without address,
Breeds error, diff’rent in its kind, not less.[Maxima pars vatum, pater et iuvenes patre digni,
decipimur specie recti: brevis esse laboro,
obscurus fio; sectantem levia nervi
deficiunt animique; professus grandia turget;
serpit humi tutus nimium timidusque procellae:
qui variare cupit rem prodigialiter unam,
delphinum silvis adpingit, fluctibus aprum:
in vitium ducit culpae fuga, si caret arte.]Horace (65–8 BC) Roman poet, satirist, soldier, politician [Quintus Horatius Flaccus]
Epistles [Epistularum, Letters], Book 2, ep. 3 “Art of Poetry [Ars Poetica; To the Pisos],” l. 24ff (2.3.24-31) (19 BC) [tr. Howes (1845)]
(Source)
(Source (Latin)). Other translations:The more deale of us Poets, both the olde, and younge most parte,
Are ofte begylde by shewe of good, affectinge to muche arte.
I laboure to be verye breife, it makes me verye harde.
I followe flowinge easynes, my style is clearely marde
For lacke of pith and saverye sence, Write loftie, thou shalte swell:
He creepes by the grounde to lowe, afrayde with stormie vayne to mell.
He that in varyinge one pointe muche would bringe forth monstruouse store,
Would make the dolphin dwell in wooddes and in the flud the bore.
The shunning of a faulte is such that now and then it will
Procure a greater faulte, if it be not eschewde by skill.
[tr. Drant (1567)]The greater part, that boast the Muses fire
Father, and sons right worthy of your Sire,
Are with the likenesse of the truth beguil'd:
My selfe for shortnesse labour, and am stil'd
Obscure. Another striving smooth to runne,
Wants strength, and sinewes, as his spirits were done;
His Muse professing height, and greatnesse, swells;
Downe close by shore, this other creeping steales,
Being over-safe, and fearing of the flaw:
So he that varying still affects to draw
One thing prodigiously, paints in the woods
A Dolphin and a Boare amidst the floods:
The shunning vice, to greater vice doth lead,
If in th'escape an artlesse path we tread.
[tr. Jonson (1640), l. 33ff]Most Poets fall into the grossest faults,
Deluded by a seeming Excellence:
By striving to be short, they grow Obscure,
And when they would write smoothly they want strength,
Their Spirits sink; while others that affect,
A lofty Stile, swell to a Tympany;
Some timerous wretches start at every blast,
And fearing Tempests, dare not leave the Shore.
Others in love with wild variety,
Draw Boars in Waves, and Dolphins in a Wood;
Thus fear of Erring, joyn'd with want of Skill,
Is a most certain way of Erring still.
[tr. Roscommon (1680)]But oft, our greatest errors take their rise
From our best views. I strive to be concise;
I prove obscure. My strength, my fire decays,
When in pursuit of elegance and ease.
Aiming at greatness, some to fustian soar;
Some in cold safety creep along the shore,
Too much afraid of storms; while he, who tries
With ever-varying wonders to surprise,
In the broad forest bids his dolphins play,
And paints his boars disporting in the sea.
Thus, injudicious, while one fault we shun,
Into its opposite extreme we run.
[tr. Francis (1747)]Lov'd sire! lov'd sons, well worthy such a sire!
Most bards are dupes to beauties they admire.
Proud to be brief, for brevity must please,
I grow obscure; the follower of ease
Wants nerve and soul; the lover of sublime
Swells to bombast; while he who dreads that crime,
Too fearful of the whirlwind rising round,
A wretched reptile, creeps along the ground.
The bard, ambitious fancies who displays,
And tortures one poor thought a thousand ways,
Heaps prodigies on prodigies; in woods
Pictures the dolphin, and the boar in floods!
Thus ev'n the fear of faults to faults betrays,
Unless a master-hand conduct the lays.
[tr. Coleman (1783)]Most of us poets -- O father, and sons worthy of your father, -- are misled by our idea of what is correct. I try to be terse, and end by being obscure; another strives after smoothness, to the sacrifice of vigour and spirit; a third aims at grandeur, and drops into bombast; a fourth, through an excess of caution and fear of squalls, goes creeping along the ground. He who is bent on lending variety to a theme that is by nature uniform, so as to produce an unnatural effect, is like a man who paints a dolphin in a forest or a wild boar in the waves. If artistic feeling is not there, mere avoidance of a fault leads to some worse defect.
[tr. Blakeney (1828)]The great majority of us poets, father, and youths worthy such a father, are misled by the appearance of right. I labor to be concise, I become obscure: nerves and spirit fail him, that aims at the easy: one, that pretends to be sublime, proves bombastical: he who is too cautious and fearful of the storm, crawls along the ground: he who wants to vary his subject in a marvelous manner, paints the dolphin in the woods, the boar in the sea. The avoiding of an error leads to a fault, if it lack skill.
[tr. Smart/Buckley (1853)]Ye worthy trio! we poor sons of song
Oft find 'tis fancied right that leads us wrong.
I prove obscure in trying to be terse;
Attempts at ease emasculate my verse;
Who aims at grandeur into bombast falls;
Who fears to stretch his pinions creeps and crawls;
Who hopes by strange variety to please
Puts dolphins among forests, boars in seas.
Thus zeal to 'scape from error, if unchecked
By sense of art, creates a new defect.
[tr. Conington (1874)]We poets, most of us, by the pretence,
Dear friends, are duped of seeming excellence.
We grow obscure in striving to be terse;
Aiming at ease, we enervate our verse;
For grandeur soaring, into bombast fall,
And, dreading that, like merest reptiles crawl;
Whilst he, who seeks his readers to surprise
With common things shown in uncommon wise,
Will make his dolphins through the forests roam.
His wild boars ride upon the billows' foam.
So unskilled writers, in their haste to shun
One fault, are apt into a worse to run.
[tr. Martin (1881)]The greater part of us poets, O ye Father and Sons worthy of your parent, deceive ourselves under our illusion of what is right. I strive to write briefly, and so write obscurely. Compositions of a smooth nature argue a writer's deficiency both in force and spirit. An attempt at great subjects swells into bombast. A too cautious writer, and dreader of opposition, confines himself to common things. One who desires to amplify a single theme in an extravagant way, puts a dophin innto a wood, and a wild boar into the sea. The avoidance of one error, if unguarded by art, leads to another.
[tr. Elgood (1893)]Most of us poets are misled by insistence upon our idea of what is right. I try to be brief and I become obscure; aiming at smoothness, we lose in vigor and spirit; attempting the sublime, we become turgid. Timid of the storm, we crawl along the ground. Thus if one lacks art, the over careful avoidance of one fault leads to another.
[tr. Dana/Dana (1911)]Most of us poets, O father and ye sons worthy of the father, deceive ourselves by the semblance of truth. Striving to be brief, I become obscure. Aiming at smoothness, I fail in force and fire. One promising grandeur, is bombastic; another, overcautious and fearful of the gale, creeps along the ground. The man who tries to vary a single subject in monstrous fashion, is like a painter adding a dolphin to the woods, a boar to the waves. Shunning a fault may lead to error, if there be lack of art.
[tr. Fairclough (Loeb) (1926)]O father, and sons who deserve a father like yours,
We poets are too often tricked into trying to achieve
A particular kind of perfection: I studiously try
To be brief, and become obscure; I try to be smooth,
And my vigor and force disappear; another assures us
Of something big which turns out to be merely pompous.
Another one crawls on the ground because he's too safe,
Too much afraid of the storm. The poet who strives
To vary his single subject in wonderful ways
Paints dolphins in woods and foaming boars on the waves.
Avoiding mistakes, if awkwardly done, leads to an error.
[tr. Palmer Bovie (1959)]Most poets, father and young men deserving such a father,
go wrong in trying to be right: I struggle for concision,
I wind up being obscure; others try for smoothness
and lose strength, or for sublimit, and get gas.
One poet, too cautious, fears storms and craws along,
the other craves bizarre variety in a single subject
and paints a dolphin in a forest, a boar among the waves.
Fear of criticism leads to faults if we lack art.
[tr. Fuchs (1977)]Most poets, leaders and led,
Chase a will-o’-the-wisp of abstract Right.
Thus:
I aim
at concision,
I hit
on darkness.
I aim to be smooth, my lines go slack.
The eloquent idealist rants and raves,
The timid, the gutless, crawl like beetles,
Seekers after novelty hang dolphins in trees,
Float a boar in the sea:
O rare effects!
O marvelous.
Ugh.
[tr. Raffel (1983 ed.)]Father and worthy sons, we poets often
Know what we're aiming at, and often we miss.
I try my best to be terse, and I'm obscure;
I try for mellifluous smoothness, smooth as can be,
And the line comes out as spineless as a worm;
One poet, aiming for grandeur, booms and blusters;
Another one, scared, creeps his way under the storm;
And another, desiring to vary his single theme
In wonderful ways, produces not wonders but monsters --
Dolphins up in the trees, pigs in the ocean.
If you don't know what you're doing you can go wrong
Just out of trying to do your best to do right.
[tr. Ferry (2001)]Poets in the main (I’m speaking to a father and his excellent sons)
are baffled by the outer form of what’s right. I strive to be brief,
and become obscure; I try for smoothness, and instantly lose
muscle and spirit; to aim at grandeur invites inflation;
excessive caution or fear of the wind induces groveling.
The man who brings in marvels to vary a simple theme
is painting a dolphin among the trees, a boar in the billows.
Avoiding a fault will lead to error if art is missing.
[tr. Rudd (2005 ed.)]Most poets (dear sir, and you sons worthy of your sire),
Are beguiled by accepted form. I try to be brief
And become obscure: aiming at smoothness I fail
In strength and spirit: claiming grandeur he’s turgid:
Too cautious, fearing the blast, he crawls on the ground:
But the man who wants to distort something unnaturally
Paints a dolphin among the trees, a boar in the waves.
Avoiding faults leads to error, if art is lacking.
[tr. Kline (2015)]
With a view to poetry, an impossible thing that is believable is preferable to an unbelievable thing that is possible.
[πρός τε γὰρ τὴν ποίησιν αἱρετώτερον πιθανὸν ἀδύνατον ἢ ἀπίθανον καὶ δυνατόν.]
Aristotle (384–322 BC) Greek philosopher
Poetics [Περὶ ποιητικῆς, De Poetica], ch. 24 / 1461b.11 (c. 335 BC) [tr. Sachs (2006)]
(Source)
Original Greek. Other translations:
- "The poet should prefer probable impossibilities to improbable possibilities." [tr. Butcher (1895)]
- "A likely impossibility is always preferable to an unconvincing possibility." [tr. Bywater (1909)]
- "You should prefer a plausible impossibility to an unconvincing possibility." [tr. Margoliouth (1911)]
- "For poetic effect a convincing impossibility is preferable to that which is unconvincing though possible." [tr. Fyfe (1932)]
- "Probable impossibilities are preferable to implausible possibilities." [tr. Halliwell (1986)]
- "In relation to the needs of the composition, a believable impossibility is preferable to an unbelievable possibility." [tr. Janko (1987)]
- "With respect to the requirement of art, the probable impossible is always preferable to the improbable possible."
- "For the purposes of poetry a convincing impossibility is preferable to an unconvincing possibility."
Poetry demands a man with special gift for it, or else one with a touch of madness in him; the former can easily assume the required mood, and the latter may be actually beside himself with emotion.
[διὸ εὐφυοῦς ἡ ποιητική ἐστιν ἢ μανικοῦ: τούτων γὰρ οἱ μὲν εὔπλαστοι οἱ δὲ ἐκστατικοί εἰσιν.]
Aristotle (384–322 BC) Greek philosopher
Poetics [Περὶ ποιητικῆς, De Poetica], ch. 17 / 1455a.33 (c. 335 BC) [tr. Bywater (1909)]
(Source)
Original Greek. Fyfe (below) notes μανικός to mean "genius to madness near allied," and adds "Plato held that the only excuse for a poet was that he couldn't help it." A possible source of Seneca's "touch of madness" attribution to Aristotle. Other translations:Poetry implies either a happy gift of nature or a strain of madness. In the one case a man can take the mould of any character; in the other, he is lifted out of his proper self.
[tr. Butcher (1895)]Poetry is the work for the finely constituted or the hysterical; for the hysterical are impressionable, whereas the finely constituted are liable to outbursts.
[tr. Margoliouth (1911); whiles this seems backward, Margoliouth further explains in his footnote.]Poetry needs either a sympathetic nature or a madman, the former being impressionable and the latter inspired.
[tr. Fyfe (1932)]Hence the poetic art belongs either to a naturally gifted person or an insane one, since those of the former sort are easily adaptable and the latter are out of their senses.
[tr. Sachs (2006)]In order to write tragic poetry, you must be either a genius who can adapt himself to anything, or a madman who lets himself get carried away.
[tr. Kenny (2013)]
I am very grateful to you for rejecting atheism and for liking this line: “If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him.” I am rarely satisfied with my verses, but I own I have a father’s tenderness for that one.
[Je vous sais bien bon gré de réprouver l’athéisme, et d’aimer ce vers: “Si Dieu n’existait pas, il faudrait l’inventer.” Je suis rarement content de mes vers, mais j’avoue que j’ai une tendresse de père pour celui-là.]
Voltaire (1694–1778) French writer [pseud. of Francois-Marie Arouet]
Letter (1770-11-10) to Bernard-Joseph Saurin
(Source (French)). Found in Œuvres complètes de Voltaire, tome 47 (1882), as letter 8080.
See more about that line here.
If you wou’d not be forgotten
As soon as you are dead and rotten,
Either write things worth reading,
Or do things worth the writing.Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) American statesman, scientist, philosopher, aphorist
Poor Richard (1738 ed.)
(Source)
I think it behooves us to treat our characters’ beliefs with some measure of respect, whatever he believes in. I mean I’m an atheist myself, but I don’t have to believe in Minbari to write about Minbari. I think if that person is a religious character, then you have to treat them with integrity and deal with them properly.
J. Michael (Joe) Straczynski (b. 1954) American screenwriter, producer, author [a/k/a "JMS"]
Panel Discussion, MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts (4 May 1998)
(Source)
The more important the emotion is, the fewer words required to express it:
Will you go out with me?
I think I like you.
I care for you.
I love you.
Marry me.
Goodbye.J. Michael (Joe) Straczynski (b. 1954) American screenwriter, producer, author [a/k/a "JMS"]
rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated, “A Quote by JMS” (31 Jan 2008)
(Source)
Straczynski is quoting something he'd previously written on the death of Andreas Katsulas (Feb 2006). A variant of the quote can be found as a sig line at least as far back as Sep 2007:I had this theory that the more important and intimate the emotion, the fewer words are required to express it.
First it's in dating: "Will you go out with me?" Six words.
"Honey, I care for you." Five words.
"You matter to me." Four words.
"I love you." Three words.
"Marry me." Two words.
But what's left? What's the one most important and intimate word you can ever say to somebody?
It's "goodbye."
As an atheist, I believe that all life is unspeakably precious, because it’s only here for a brief moment, a flare against the dark, and then it’s gone forever. No afterlives, no second chances, no backsies. So there can be nothing crueler than the abuse, destruction or wanton taking of a life. It is a crime no less than burning the Mona Lisa, for there is always just one of each.
So I cannot forgive. Which makes the notion of writing a character who CAN forgive momentarily attractive … because it allows me to explore in great detail something of which I am utterly incapable.
J. Michael (Joe) Straczynski (b. 1954) American screenwriter, producer, author [a/k/a "JMS"]
Usenet, rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5, “JMS on Compuserve: Gesthemane Questions” (1995-12-04)
(Source)
It is the spirit of the age to believe that any fact, no matter how suspect, is superior to any imaginative exercise, no matter how true.
Gore Vidal (1925–2012) American novelist, dramatist, critic
“French Letters: Theories of the New Novel,” Encounter (Dec 1967)
All Bette’s stories have happy endings. That’s because she knows where to stop. She’s realized the real problem with stories — if you keep them going long enough, they always end in death.
Neil Gaiman (b. 1960) British author, screenwriter, fabulist
Sandman, Book 1. Preludes and Nocturnes, # 6 “24 Hours” (1989-06)
(Source)
The best authors are always the severest critics of their own works; they revise, correct, file, and polish them, till they think they have brought them to perfection.
Lord Chesterfield (1694–1773) English statesman, wit [Philip Dormer Stanhope]
Letter to his son, #253 (6 May 1751)
(Source)
The writer is delegated to declare and to celebrate man’s proven capacity for greatness of heart and spirit — for gallantry in defeat — for courage, compassion and love. In the endless war against weakness and despair, these are the bright rally-flags of hope and of emulation. I hold that a writer who does not passionately believe in the perfectibility of man, has no dedication nor any membership in literature.
John Steinbeck (1902–1968) American writer
Speech (1962-12-10), Nobel Prize Banquet, Stockholm
(Source)
My attitude toward punctuation is that it ought to be as conventional as possible. The game of golf would lose a good deal if croquet mallets and billiard cues were allowed on the putting green. You ought to be able to show that you can do it a good deal better than anyone else with the regular tools before you have a license to bring in your own improvements.
Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American writer
Letter (15 May 1925)
In C. Baker (ed.), Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters, 1917-1961 (1981).
One of the pleasant things those of us who write or paint do is to have the daily miracle. It does come.
G. B. Stern (1890–1973) British writer [Gladys Bronwyn Stern]
Paris France, Part I (1940)
A certain critic — for such men, I regret to say, do exist — made the nasty remark about my last novel that it contained ‘all the old Wodehouse characters under different names’. He has probably now been eaten by bears, like the children who made mock of the prophet Elisha: but if he still survives he will not be able to make a similar charge against Summer Lightning. With my superior intelligence, I have outgeneralled this man by putting in all the old Wodehouse characters under the same names. Pretty silly it will make him feel, I rather fancy.
P. G. Wodehouse (1881–1975) Anglo-American humorist, playwright and lyricist [Pelham Grenville Wodehouse]
Summer Lightning, Preface (1929)
What I like in a good author isn’t what he says, but what he whispers.
Logan Pearsall Smith (1865–1946) American-English essayist, editor, anthologist
Afterthoughts, “Arts and Letters” (1931)
Preaching has become a bye-word for long and dull conversation of any kind; and whoever wishes to imply, in any piece of writing, the absence of everything agreeable and inviting, calls it a sermon.
Sydney Smith (1771–1845) English clergyman, essayist, wit
Memoir of the Reverend Sydney Smith, by His Daughter, Lady Holland, Vol. 1, ch. 3 (1855)
(Source)
In composing, as a general rule, run your pen through every other word you have written; you have no idea what vigor it will give your style.
Sydney Smith (1771–1845) English clergyman, essayist, wit
Memoir of the Reverend Sydney Smith, by His Daughter, Lady Holland, Vol. 1, ch. 11 (1855)
(Source)
But every writer, especially every novelist, has a “message”, whether he admits it or not, and the minutest details of his work are influenced by it. All art is propaganda. Neither Dickens himself nor the majority of Victorian novelists would have thought of denying this. On the other hand, not all propaganda is art.
When a man is in doubt about this or that in his writing, it will often guide him if he asks himself how it will tell a hundred years hence.
Samuel Butler (1835–1902) English novelist, satirist, scholar
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler, “Writing for a Hundred Years Hence” (1912)Full text.
Most books are propaganda, direct or indirect.
George Orwell (1903–1950) English journalist, essayist, writer [pseud. of Eric Arthur Blair]
Essay (1938-07-08), Review of Frasnk Jellinkek, The Civil War in Spain, The New Leader
(Source)
No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader.
Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet
“The Figure a Poem Makes,” Collected Poems, Preface, “The Figure a Poem Makes” (1939)
(Source)
By all means begin your folio; even if the doctor does not give you a year, even if he hesitates about a month, make one brave push and see what can be accomplished in a week. It is not only in finished undertakings that we ought to honour useful labour.
Nothing so sharpens the thought process as writing down one’s arguments. Weaknesses overlooked in oral discussion become painfully obvious on the written page.
Hyman Rickover (1900–1986) Polish-American naval engineer, admiral [b. Chaim Gdala Rykower]
Speech (1981-11-05), “Doing a Job,” Egleston Medal Award Dinner, Columbia School of Engineering and Applied Science, New York
(Source)
Every writer is a frustrated actor who recites his lines in the hidden auditorium of his skull.
Rod Serling (1924–1975) American screenwriter, playwright, television producer, narrator
Vogue (1 Apr 1957)
Undoubtedly the stories about them [hard-boiled detectives] had a fantastic element. Such things happened, but not so rapidly, nor to so close-knit a group of people, nor within so narrow a frame of logic. This was inevitable because the demand was for constant action; if you stopped to think you were lost. When in doubt, have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand.
Sure it’s simple, writing for kids. Just as simple as bringing them up. All you do is take all the sex out, and use little short words, and little dumb ideas, and don’t be too scary and be sure there’s a happy ending. Right? Nothing to it. Write down. Right on. If you do all that you might even write Jonathan Livingstone Seagull and make twenty million dollars and have every adult in America reading your book.
But you won’t have every kid in America reading your book. They will look at it, with their clear, cold, beady little eyes, and they will put it down, and they will go away. Kids will devour vast amounts of garbage (and it is good for them) but they are not like adults; they have not yet learned to eat plastic.Ursula K. Le Guin (1929–2018) American writer
“Dreams Must Explain Themselves” (1973)
if you are writing without zest, without gusto, without love, without fun, you are only half a writer. It means you are so busy keeping one eye on the commercial market, or one ear peeled for the avant-garde coterie, that you are not being yourself. You don’t even know yourself. For the first thing a writer should be is — excited. He should be a thing of fevers and enthusiasms. Without such vigor, he might as well be out picking peaches or digging ditches; God knows it’d be better for his health.
Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) American writer, futurist, fabulist
“The Joy of Writing,” Zen & the Art of Writing and The Joy of Writing, Capra Chapbook No. 13 (1973)
(Source)
Reprinted in Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing (1990).
Words, like glass, obscure when they do not aid vision.
[Les mots, comme les verres, obscurcissent tout ce qu’ils n’aident pas à mieux voir.]
Joseph Joubert (1754–1824) French moralist, philosopher, essayist, poet
Pensées [Thoughts], ch. 22 “Du Style [On Style],” ¶ 25 (1850 ed.) [tr. Lyttelton (1899), ch. 21, ¶ 15]
(Source)
(Source (French)). Other translations:Words, like glass, darken whatever they do not help us to see.
[tr. Attwell (1896), ¶ 304]Words, like eyeglasses, obscure everything they do not make clear.
[Source]
RICHELIEU: Beneath the rule of men entirely great
The pen is mightier than the sword. Behold
The arch-enchanter’s wand! — itself a nothing! —
But taking sorcery from the master-hand
To paralyze the Caesars — and to strike
The loud earth breathless! — Take away the sword —
States can be saved without it!Edward George Bulwer-Lytton (1803–1873) English novelist and politician
Richelieu, Act 2, sc. 2 (1839)
(Source)
CALVIN: I used to hate writing assignments, but now I enjoy them. I realized that the purpose of writing is to inflate weak ideas, obscure poor reasoning, and inhibit clarity. With a little practice, writing can be an intimidating and impenetrable fog!
ROSENCRANTZ: Many wearing rapiers are afraid of goosequills.
William Shakespeare (1564–1616) English dramatist and poet
Hamlet, Act 2, sc. 2, l. 366ff (2.2.366) (c. 1600)
(Source)
There are also conflicts about important things or ideas. In such cases I am more impressed by the extreme importance of being on the right side, than I am disturbed by the revelation of the jungle of confused motives, private purposes, and individual actions (noble or base) in which the right and the wrong in actual human conflicts are commonly involved.
J.R.R. Tolkien (1892–1973) English writer, fabulist, philologist, academic [John Ronald Reuel Tolkien]
Notes on W. H. Auden’s review of Return of the King (1956)
(Source)
Auden's review: "At the End of the Quest, Victory," New York Times Book Review (1956-01-22).
Tolkien never sent or shared these notes. Reprinted in Humphrey Carpenter, ed., The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, #183 (1981).
Don’t loaf and invite inspiration; light out after it with a club, and if you don’t get it you will nonetheless get something that looks remarkably like it.
Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.
Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English philosopher, scientist, author, statesman
“Of Studies,” Essays, No. 50 (1625)
(Source)
For ridicule shall frequently prevail,
And cut the knot, when graver reasons fail.[Ridiculum acri
Fortius et melius magnas plerumque secat res.]Horace (65–8 BC) Roman poet, satirist, soldier, politician [Quintus Horatius Flaccus]
Satires [Saturae, Sermones], Book 1, # 10 “Nempe incomposito,” l. 14ff (1.10.14-15) (35 BC) [tr. Francis (1747)]
(Source)
On varying and selecting the proper tone and style when writing.
(Source (Latin)). Other translations:A Drolling merry stile does better hit
Great matters, then a down-right railing Wit.
[tr. A. B.; ed. Brome (1666)]A waggish sneer
Doth nick the great Ones more then a severe.
[tr. Creech (1684)]For oft a smile beyond a frown prevails,
And raillery triumphs where invective fails.
[tr. Howes (1845)]For ridicule often decides matters of importance more effectually and in a better manner, than severity.
[tr. Smart/Buckley (1853)]The satire's jest will generally solve all matters of great moment with more spirit and success than declamation's gravity.
[tr. The Millington (1870)]And pleasantry will often cut clean through
Hard knots that gravity would scarce undo.
[tr. Conington (1874)]Humour very often cuts the knot of serious questions more trenchantly and successfully than severity.
[tr. Wickham (1903)]Jesting oft cuts hard knots more forcefully and effectively than gravity.
[tr. Fairclough (Loeb) (1926)]A jest often decides matters of importance more effectively and happily than seriousness.
[tr. Wells, ed. Kraemer (1936)]A good witticism is often conclusive and forceful
Where a sober remark is not.
[tr. Palmer Bovie (1959)]Frequently a clever stroke is better,
abler in cutting at big problems than something serious.
[tr. Fuchs (1977)]Most times, ridicule cuts sharp and clean
when it deals with serious matters
and arouses indignation for the most part.
[tr. Alexander (1999)]Jokes can slice
knots that blunt earnest attack.
[tr. Matthews (2002)]Humour is often stronger
and more effective than sharpness in cutting knotty issues.
[tr. Rudd (2005 ed.)]Ridicule usually
Cuts through things better, more swiftly, than force.
[tr. Kline (2015)]
An historian is an unsuccessful novelist.
H. L. Mencken (1880–1956) American writer and journalist [Henry Lewis Mencken]
A Little Book in C Major, ch. 7, § 21 (1916)
(Source)
Variants:HISTORIAN. An unsuccessful novelist.
[A Book of Burlesques, "The Jazz Webster" (1924)]Historian - An unsuccessful novelist.
[Chrestomathy, ch. 30 "Sententiae" (1949)]
Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please.
Mark Twain (1835–1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
Interview (1889) by Rudyard Kipling, Elmira, New York, From Sea to Sea, Part 2, ch. 37 “An Interview with Mark Twain” (1899)
(Source)
Broader context:"Personally I never care for fiction or story-books. What I like to read about are facts and statistics of any kind. If they are only facts about the raising of radishes, they interest me. Just now, for instance, before you came in" -- he pointed to an encyclopædia on the shelves -- "I was reading an article about 'Mathematics.' Perfectly pure mathematics.
"My own knowledge of mathematics stops at 'twelve times twelve,' but I enjoyed that article immensely. I didn't understand a word of it: but facts, or what a man believes to be facts, are always delightful. That mathematical fellow believed in his facts. So do I. Get your facts first, and" -- the voice dies away to an almost inaudible drone -- "then you can distort 'em as much as you please."
Variant: "Get the facts first. You can distort them later."
For more discussion of this quotation, see "Get your facts first, and then you can distort them… (Barry Popik).
Life is like music, it must be composed by ear, feeling and instinct, not by rule. Nevertheless one had better know the rules, for they sometimes guide in doubtful cases, though not often.
Samuel Butler (1835–1902) English novelist, satirist, scholar
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler, ch. 1, “Life” (1912)
(Source)
Write me every day about these points and anything else. When you have nothing to write, write and say so.
[De omnibus cotidie scribas. Ubi nihil erit quot scribas id ipsum scirbito.]
Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 BC) Roman orator, statesman, philosopher
Epistulae ad Atticum [Letters to Atticus], Book 4, Letter 8, sec. 4 (4.8.4) (55 BC) [tr. Winstedt (Loeb) (1912), 8a]
(Source)
(Source (Latin)). Another translation:Write me word on these points and all others every day. When there is nothing for you to write, write and say so.
[tr. Shuckburgh (1900), 8b]Even if you have nothing to write, write and say so.
[ed. Harbottle (1906)
A painting is never finished — it simply stops in interesting places.
(Other Authors and Sources)
Paul Gardner
HOBBES: Have you an idea for your story yet?
CALVIN: No, I’m waiting for inspiration. You can’t just turn on creativity like a faucet. You have to be in the right mood.
HOBBES: What mood is that?
CALVIN: Last-minute panic.
