Writing Quotes - Page 370

A person who publishes a book willfully appears before the populace with his pants down. If it is a good book nothing can hurt him. If it is a bad book nothing can help him.

For me to write I have to be, a, alone, and b, know that nobody is going to question me. I write the way a thief steals; it's a little covert.

The ideal view for daily writing, hour for hour, is the blank brick wall of a cold-storage warehouse. Failing this, a stretch of sky will do, cloudless if possible.

If I take a less defensive tone, I'd admit that I couldn't write today a very jazzy, contemporary look at America as I did in 1979 in States of Desire.

Ive always seen writing as a way of telling the truth. For me, writing is about truth. I have always tried to be faithful to my own experience.

Provide me with ink and paper and I will write.

There are few cases in which mere popularity should be considered a proper test of merit; but the case of song-writing is, I think, one of the few.

I was born on the same day as Edgar Allan Poe and Dolly Parton: January 19. I am absolutely certain that this affects my writing in some way.

It comes back to the same old question people are always asking me: 'When are you going to do a solo record?' Well, if I did, it would probably be similar to 'Baluchitherium,' meaning it would be Van Halen music - which I write anyway - but without singing.

Depending on what I'm working on, I come to the writing desk with entirely different mindsets. When I change form one to the other, it's as if another writer is on the scene.

Should we be rewriting history just to make people feel good? That's not history, that's psychiatry.

The final test for a novel will be our affection for it, as it is the test of our friends, and of anything else which we cannot define.

A novel must give a sense of permanence as well as a sense of life.

The best person to write for is yourself—and what better place to start than in a journal.

The act of composition is a series of discoveries.

Thurber did not write the way a surgeon operates, he wrote the way a child skips rope, the way a mouse waltzes.

Writing is hard work and bad for the health.

The best writing is rewriting.

I used to do poetry and write stories and stuff - I never really had anybody standing over my shoulder, like, "What did you write? Let me hear it." I hate that type of stuff.

I was really artistic. I did a lot of poetry, a lot of writing.

I need to write in a small room - the smaller the better. I can't write in a big room where someone might sneak up behind my back.

Even though Lyndon Johnson's presidency was in many ways scarred forever by the war in Vietnam, and destroyed in a lot of ways, he - as a character - was even larger than his presidency. Being able to get to know him well, that firsthand relationship with this large character, I think is what drew me to writing books about presidents.

Every poem I write falls short in some important way. But I go on trying to write the one that won’t.

I don’t worry anymore about writing. There are times that I go through dry periods. I never go through a block. I’m always writing, but there are times where I’m just not on my game, and I’ll use that time to read some new poets, go see some art, walk down to the river and just stare at it, or have a conversation with my sister, or whatever—do whatever it is that I do in my life, hoping that I’ll get filled up enough. And something will happen, some juggling will happen and boom.

The angels don't care what words you use. They appreciate the engraved, fancy prayers, but they say, "Just talk to us." You can use ordinary language - the language you use when you talk with your best friend - when you ask for help. If you want to reach out to the angels for something very personal for yourself, you can say, "Dear guardian angels and archangels, I ask that you come to me now and help me resolve this problem or issue." And then you just pour out your heart to the angels. You can do it silently in your mind. You can say it out loud. You can write it.