Writing Quotes - Page 900

Better to think of writing, of what one does, as an activity, rather than an identity to keep the calling a verb rather than a noun.

I do have people in mind when I write. I don't know precisely who they are, however, or how many of them there are.

I regret that there aren't more short stories in other magazines. But in a certain way, I think the disappearance of the short-story template from everyone's head can be freeing. Partly because there's no mass market for stories, the form is up for grabs. It can be many, many things. So the anthology is very much intended for students, but I think we're all in the position of writing students now. Very few people are going around with a day-to-day engagement with the short story.

It used to be that you would go into a writing program and what you would learn was how to write a short story. You would pick up the magazines and you would be taught from the magazines how to write a short story. Nowadays student writers are learning to write novels because that market is gone, so the ones who are drawn to the form are doing it really for reasons of their own and that's really exciting.

If you wrote about sex the way Jim [Salter] writes about sex in nonfiction, you would be a sociopath.

Somethings get easier. You get more confident in your abilities and you learn what kind of stories sell and what don't. But your standards kept going up with your skills, the business aspect of writing grows more complicated, and it becomes really hard to maintain any semblance of a balanced life the longer you're at this. No matter what level you're at, writing is always difficult.

If heaven is tolerant and writers are allowed (bunch of liars though they are), I wonder if they gather for coffee to ponder the prose they should have written instead.

I would never write something that made me uncomfortable. Im not sure its even possible.

If I found out some gal was trying to steal my guy, I'd want to give her a black eye! Instead, I wrote this song. At the time I was writing each song [on this album], you could figure out the frame of mind I was in by listening closely. With every song I've ever recorded, I'm in it. I wouldn't write about it if I wasn't in it.

No I don't really write thinking about specific actors because it can get in the way a little bit.

I'm always amused by the way questions are asked. "What did you intend?" That's not even a recognizable verb. You don't intend when you write. You sit down and you're thinking things and dreaming things and someone says something and you think "Ah!" That's how it happens. Intention is not part of the game.

I wrote Her First American and I always say it took me eighteen years. It took me that long was because after about five years I stopped and wrote Lucinella. I got stuck; it was too hard to write. Lucinella felt like a lark. I wanted to write about the literary circle because it amused me, and I allowed myself to do what I wanted to do. It's just one of the things I'm allowed to do if I feel like it.

Gustave Flaubert said, "Emma Bovary, c'est moi." It is not possible to write something you are not, but to have a new form, with a different hair color and a new body ... I do very little of that. That's why I keep bringing up the same people. I haven't given myself a hard time about it. But I can't make six new characters instead of one.

Deafness produces bizarre effects, reversing the natural order of things; the interchange of letters is the conversation of the deaf, and the only link with society. I would be in despair, for instance, over seeing you speak, but, instead, I am only too happy to hear you write.

Whatever poets may write, or fools believe, of rural innocence and truth, and of the perfidy of courts, this is most undoubtedly true,--that shepherds and ministers are both men; their natures and passions the same, the modes of them only different.

To write anything tolerable, the mind must be in a natural, proper disposition; provocatives, in that case, as well as in another,will only produce miserable, abortive performances.

What is the end of Fame? 'tis but to fill A certain portion of uncertain paper: Some liken it to climbing up a hill, Whose summit, like all hills, is lost in vapour: For this men write, speak, preach, and heroes kill, And bards burn what they call their "midnight taper," To have, when the original is dust, A name, a wretched picture, and worse bust.

But I hate things all fiction... there should always be some foundation of fact for the most airy fabric - and pure invention is but the talent of a liar.

But 'why then publish?' There are no rewards Of fame or profit when the world grows weary. I ask in turn why do you play at cards? Why drink? Why read? To make some hour less dreary. It occupies me to turn back regards On what I've seen or pondered, sad or cheery, And what I write I cast upon the stream To swim or sink. I have had at least my dream.

Advice to Persons About to Write History - Don't.

Writers the most learned, the most accurate in details, and the soundest in tendency, frequently fall into a habit which can neither be cured nor pardoned,-the habit of making history into the proof of their theories.

Prepare for every negotiation... 1) Focus on Outcomes. What is it that you want to walk away with? Being as specific as possible also increases the likelihood of negotiation success. 2) Support your desired outcome with data that points to its reasonableness. 3) Writing down your key points in advance - and practicing them - enables you to stay focused on what's most important and avoid going off on tangents. 4) Err on the side of asking for more, rather than less [of what you really want]. 5) Be willing to walk away.

I've described my usual writing process as scrambling from peak to peak on inspiration through foggy valleys of despised logic. Inspiration is better when you can get it.

I've always tried to write the kind of book I most loved to read: character-centered adventure.

I began my writing career in a very isolated place and time.