Writing Quotes - Page 639

It is almost impossible for an Anglo-Saxon to write of sex without being dirty.

What are the characters that I discern most clearly in the so-called Anglo-Saxon type of man? I may answer at once that two stickout above all others. One is his curious and apparently incurable incompetence--his congenital inability to do any difficult thing easily and well, whether it be isolating a bacillus or writing a sonata. The other is his astounding susceptibility to fears and alarms--in short, his hereditary cowardice.... There is no record in history of any Anglo-Saxon nation entering upon any great war without allies.

Nothing can come out of an artist that is not in the man.

I write to cover a frame of ideas.

Just as writing can become calligraphy when it's creatively, skillfully, and consciously performed, so can all other activities become art. In this case, we are reflecting upon life itself as an artistic statement-the art of living.

I clearly remember writing songs [when I was young] and the power that it gave me of feeling like somebody. My whole life changed when I wrote those songs, even before anyone ever heard them. It wasn't a commercial thing.

Disorganizatio n is the enemy of good writing.

It's hard to build community around mediocre and mundane writing.

Writing is therapeutic. It helps you cope with issues that seem gargantuan at the time. The process of expressing yourself about a problem, editing your thoughts, and writing some more can help you control issues that you face.

There was no "decision" per se to re-position myself. I simply decided that I wanted to write a book that would help people influence others.

Writing is one way to achieve enchantment.

For me, while writing I am an engineer, so if I decide to change the format, I want to add a section, to move a section, reorganize the section, anything I want to do, I just boot words, and I do what I want to do. So, I feel completely empowered when I'm a writer.

For me writing is as close to being an engineer as possible.

The first good reason to write a book is to add value to people’s lives.

I have written much less than most people who write; I have drunk much more than most people who drink.

Among the small number of things that I have liked and known how to do well, what I have assuredly known how to do best is drink. Even though I have read a lot, I have drunk even more. I have written much less than most people who write; but I have drunk much more than most people who drink.

When you reduce a woman to writing, she makes you think of a thousand other women

There comes a point at which you stop writing and think all the more

If I weren't the way I am, I shouldn't write my symphonies.

Once you're directing, you're kind of in a certain mode, where you're taking whatever is on the page and forming it into the film that you think it might want to be. So whether it's my writing or not, I still try to work with it in the same way.

I knew [Eva Braun] wrote to [Adolf Hitler], I would see her writing to him and I would see her reading his notes or letters. She kept all that in a safe at the Berghof and nobody got near that safe except Hitler or Eva.

Eva [Braun] liked to write cards and letters, she spent a great deal of time on this. She had lovely writing, lovely sets of stationary and she spent hours a day on her correspondence, at least later on.

I think the novel form chose me. I was a writer before I became a criminal... my first instinct was to write.

I went door-to-door selling cable television subscriptions when I was in college. I found it incredibly difficult, doing that kind of sales work. I would have thought I'd be good at it, but I wasn't. It's so easy in acting. Everything falls into place when they write that you're a salesman. People just say yes, and then it's great.

I enjoy writing the same way I enjoy doing standup. Part of the challenge is being creative and making it work no matter what the constraints.