Writing Quotes - Page 283

Once you succeed in writing the programs for [these] complicated algorithms, they usually run extremely fast. The computer doesn't need to understand the algorithm, its task is only to run the programs.

An evil fate has deprived me of the full use of my right hand, so that I am not able to play my compositions as I feel them. The trouble with my hand is that certain fingers have become so weak, probably through writing and playing too much at one time, that I can hardly use them.

I still have a struggle reading (dyslexia, fh) and so I don't read much.. ..Probably the only reason I'm painter is because I couldn't read yet I love to write, but when I write I know what I'm writing, but when I'm reading I can't see it, because it goes from all sides of the page at once. But that's very good for printmaking.

I'd like to write a big rock anthem again. I just need to listen to Korn, and then I might get the idea of how to do it.

The urge to write poetry is like having an itch. When the itch becomes annoying enough, you scratch it.

In one deep sense, novels are concealed autobiography. I don't mean that you are telling facts about yourself, but you are trying to find out what you really think or who you are.

Natural writers will often try to force themselves into a form - novel, story, screenplay, or poem - that is not necessarily the appropriate form for the way they see the world... if, in fact, they are writing from the artist's impulse, which is a deep, inchoate vision of some sort of order behind the apparent chaos of life on planet earth, they'll be driven then to express that vision in the creation of the object - the art object.

Writing [for the novelist] is not an activity, but a condition. That is why one simply can't resume the work when one has a job and a free half-day. Reading is the conveyance of this condition.

A culture-bearing book, like a mule, bears the culture on its back. No one should sit down to write one deliberately. Culture-bearing books appear almost accidentally, like a sudden surge in the stock market. There are books of high quality that are a part of the culture, but that is not the same. They are a part of it. They aren't carrying it anywhere. They may talk about insanity sympathetically, for example, because that's the standard cultural attitude. But they don't carry any suggestion that insanity might be something other than sickness or degeneracy.

When I suffer in mind, stories are my refuge; I take them like opium; and consider one who writes them as a sort of doctor of the mind.

Writing free verse is like playing tennis with the net down.

"Let there be no inscription upon my tomb. Let no man write my epitaph. No man can write my epitaph. I am here ready to die. I am not allowed to vindicate my character; and when I am prevented from vindicating myself, let no man dare calumniate me. Let my character and motives repose in obscurity and peace, till other times and other men can do them justice.

You have to give people something to actually write music so that you're not just running your mouth all the time.

I don’t think any man writing can worry about what the act of writing costs him, even though at times he is very aware of it.

Writing, even though it's hard work, is really a joy when you get these characters to come alive. It's hard to trace where they come from. I can't say that I am sitting here one night at nine o'clock and that a character occurs to me. The magic for me happens at the typewriter.

I'm always telling myself as I write that I'm not really writing a novel; I'm just going to fool around with a character or an idea.

A man I know who writes and aspires to be a novelist does very little reading, and he's not that successful. But I think it's because he's like the kid who wants to be a ballplayer and never goes to the ballpark or tries to hit a ball. So I'd say reading is the most important thing that I do, besides the actual writing. I'm always asking as I read, "How did the writer do this? Why do I suddenly have tears in my eyes? Why am I crying?"

The biggest obstacle to professional writing is the necessity for changing a typewriter ribbon.

One could write a history of science in reverse by assembling the solemn pronouncements of highest authority about what could not be done and could never happen.

People who are busy and happy don't write diaries; they are too busy living.

I lost that excitement I had when I first started out. It was all about the need to just get a job, and so I found the joy again when I was writing Deuce Bigelow. I was laughing so hard and along with my writing partner at the time, simply laughing until we cried

Creative writing and literacy go hand and hand.

Every acting gig isn't the same, every writing job isn't the same, every live performance isn't the same - the challenge is the level of difficulty or ease, and that may vary.

Two hundred Romans, and no one’s got a pen? Never mind!" He slung his M16 onto his back and pulled out a hand grenade. There were many screaming Romans. Then the hand grenade morphed into a ballpoint pen, and Mars began to write. Frank looked at Percy with wide eyes. He mouthed: Can your sword do grenade form? Percy mouthed back, No. Shut up.

Seize every opportunity you have to learn. Keep your eyes and ears wide open and seize life — don't let the moments slip through your fingers like a fistful of sand. Be your own teacher. Let life write your textbook.