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QUOTES AND QUIPS:
Advice to Writers from Writers
On this page...
The Art of Writing
The Craft of Writing
The Business of Writing
Sources for Quotes and Quips
For every quote on this page, I could find another that expressed the opposite point of view. Writing is a personal endeavor. Search books by writers, for writers. Learn from the masters of the craft as you develop your own style and voice.
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THE ART OF WRITING
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If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. Stephen King
Read! Read! Read! And then read some more. When you find something that thrills you, take it apart paragraph by paragraph, line by line, word by word, to see what made it so wonderful. Then use those tricks the next time you write. W.P. Kinsella
When something can be read without effort, great effort has gone into its writing. Enrique Jardiel Poncela
I've always had the feeling it's dangerous to be friends with a writer...you can end up talking away your books. Norman Mailer
The artists who want to be writers, read the reviews; the artists who want to write, don't. William Faulkner
Many writers do little else but sit in small rooms recalling the real world.
Annie Dillard
There is almost nothing worse to live with than a struggling artist. John Updike
Talent + X = Publication. Arthur Plotnik
Listen carefully to the first criticism of your work. Note just what it is about your work that critics don't like--then cultivate it. That's the part of your work that's individual and worth keeping. Jean Cocteau
Best advice on writing I've ever received: Finish. Peter Mayle
Writing is easy. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein. Red Smith
I would never encourage anyone to be a writer. It's too hard. Eudora Welty
Advice to aspiring writers: Fasten your seatbelts--it's going to be a bumpy ride. Christipher Buckley
The best way to become a successful writer is to read good writing, remember it, and then forget where you remember it from. Gene Fowler
I don't write better when I'm drunk. I only think I do.
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Write first, drink later. To write you must be warm, fed, loved and sober.
Patrick McGrath
The tools I need for my work are paper, tobacco, food, and a little whiskey. William Faulkner
Drunks ramble; so do books by drunks. John Irving
Writing a book is like driving a car at night. You only see as far as your headlights go, but you can make the whole trip that way. E.L. Doctorow
Take out another notebook, pick up another pen, and just write, just write, just write. Natalie Goldberg
It's nervous work. The state you need to write in is the state that others are paying large sums of money to get rid of. Shirley Hazzard
The solitude of writing is quite frightening. It's close sometimes to madness, one just disappears for a day and loses touch. Nadine Gordimer
You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club. Jack London
The only reason for being a professional writer is that you just can't help it.
Leo Rosten
You don't write because you want to say something; you write because you've got something to say. F. Scott Fitzgerald
Words. like eyeglasses, blur everything that they do not make clear.
Joseph Joubert
A writer's life is not designed to reassure your mother. Rita Mae Brown
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THE CRAFT OF WRITING
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Get rid of all those exclamation points. It's like laughing at your own joke. F. Scott Fitzgerald
Stay away from MFA writing programs and writing workshops. A short workshop occasionally will do, but if you are too involved with writing programs, you stop writing for yourself and begin writing for the instructor. Susan Isaacs
The best advice I think is in reading good writers. not seeking advise from them, for we learn by emulating the best. Gay Talese
If I had to give young writers advice, I'd say don't listen to writers talking about writing or themselves. Lillian Hellman
When you catch an adjective, kill it. Mark Twain
Be grateful for every word you can cut. William Zinsser
If the noun is good and the verb is strong, you almost never need an adjective. J. Anthony Lukas
The adjective is the enemy of the noun. Voltaire
When "whom" is correct, recast the sentence. William Saffire
The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug. Mark Twain
If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out. George Orwell
Don't say it was "delightful"; make us say "delightful" when we read the description. All those descriptive words (wonderful, hideous, exquisite, etc.) are only like saying to your readers "Please, will you do my job for me?" C.S. Lewis
Avoid the passive verb whenever possible. University term papers bleed with the passive voice. It seems the accepted style of academia. Dump it.
Rita Mae Brown
The best writing advice I've ever heard: Don't write like you went to college. Alice Kahn
Never use an abstract term when a concrete one will serve. Tell [your reader] that the man gave a dollar to the tramp, rather than he indulged in an act of generosity. David Lambuth
Never use slang...because all slang goes sour in a short time. Ernest Hemingway
You can write about anything, and if you write well enough, even the reader with no intrinsic interest in the subject will become involved. Tracy Kidder
The best writing advice I've ever received is: Facts are eloquent. Norrie Epstein
Write what makes you happy. O. Henry
Writing fails because the writer does not know enough about the material. If he knows enough he will feel enough. William Sloane
Breathe in experience. Breathe out poetry. Muriel Rukeyser
Don't think and then write it down. Think on paper. Harry Kemelman
Once you've got some words looking back at you, you can take two or three--throw them away and look for others. Bernard Malamud
Never correct or rewrite until the whole thing is down. Rewrite in process is usually found to be an excuse for not going on. John Steinbeck
Prose is like hair--it shines with combing. Gustave Flaubert
The best writing is rewriting. E.B. White
An essential element of good writing is a good ear: one must listen to the sound of one's prose. Barbara Tuchman
I don't think writer's block exists really. I think that when you're trying to do something prematurely, it just won't come. Certain subjects just need time. You've go to wait before you write about them. Joyce Carol Oats
Any writer who has difficulty writing is probably not onto his true subject, but wasting time with false, petty goals; as soon as you connect with your true subject, you will write. Joyce Carol Oats
Prescription for writer's block: Begin. With a pen, not a machine. Cynthia Ozick
The best advice on writing I've ever received is, "Knock 'em dead with that lead sentence." Whitney Balliett
The hardest thing about writing, in a sense, is not writing. The sentence is supposed to be a pipeline between you and the reader. One condition of the sentence is to write so well no one notices that you're writing. James Baldwin
Don't say you were a bit confused and sort of tired and a little depressed and somewhat annoyed. Be tired. Be confused. Be depressed. Be annoyed. Don't hedge your prose with little timidities. Good writing is lean and confident. William Zinsser
You don't write. You get out of the way. Sallie Tisdale
The most important lesson in the writing trade is that any manuscript is improved if you cut away the fat. Robert Heinlein
There's not much to be said about the period except that most writers don't reach it soon enough. William Zinsser
You must be aware that the reader is at least as bright as you are.
William Maxwell
If you despise your readers, they will probably despise you. Andrew Greeley
It is the business of the writer to hide the fact that writing is his business. Readers are not interested in the mechanics of authorship. A.A. Milne
A writer who questions the capacity of the person at the other end of the line is not a writer at all, merely a schemer. E.B. White
Don't get it right, get it written. James Thurber
And I will add my own here...
An imperfect completed manuscript can always be revised. An incomplete perfect manuscript is no good to anyone. CJ
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THE BUSINESS OF WRITING
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Reading reviews of your own book is a no-win game. If the review is flattering, one tends to feel vain and uneasy. If it is a bad one, one tends to feel exposed, found out. Neither feeling does you any good. Walker Percy
Never demean yourself by talking back to a critic...Write those letters to the editor in your head, but don't put them on paper. Truman Capote
The best thing you can do about critics is never say a word. In the end, you have the last say. Tennessee Williams
It's a short walk from the hallelujah to the hoot. Vladimir Nabokov
Responding to criticism is a foolish thing to do, and an unpleasant one. It is much better to read only the advertisements of your work, and note, briefly, your royalty reports. These will tell you how popular you are. How good you are, or not, is a thing you should know only too well yourself. Ben Hecht
I would recommend the cultivation of extreme indifference to both praise and blame because praise will lead you to vanity, and blame will lead you to self-pity, and both are bad for writers. John Berryman
I think what's most disturbing about success is that it's very hazardous to your health, as well as to your daily routine. Not only are there intrusions on your time, but there's a kind of corrosion of your own humility and sense of necessary workmanship. You get the idea that anything you do is in some way marvelous. John Updike
It's terrible to have success; everyone wants you to repeat it by writing the same thing over again. Lawrence Durrell
It is more difficult to get a qualified agent than it is to get a publishing contract. John Boswell
Choose your agent as carefully as you would choose your accountant or lawyer. Or dentist. Russell Banks
The notion of making money by popular work, and then retiring on the proceeds, is the most familiar of all the devil's traps for artists. Logan Pearsall Smith
Write without pay until somebody offers you pay. Mark Twain
Your chances of making a living as a full-time writer are as good as your chances of playing first base for the New York Yankees. Bill Adler
Sir, no man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money. Samuel Johnson
Best writing advice I ever received: Sell everything three times.
Margaret Carlson
Writing is the only profession where no one considers you ridiculous if you earn no money. Jules Renard
Theft, the unacknowledged borrowing of style or substance or method, is bad; don't do it. Credit your teachers. Nicholson Baker
If you steal from one author it's plagiarism. If you steal from many, it's research. Wilson Mizner
If you ever write something, and it is reviewed, and the review includes a photo of you, and both the photo and review are bad, you will find that the photo is more painful. Diane Johnson
I am convinced as a member of the reading public that bad author photographs are bad business. I have been put off reading books, which otherwise looked attractive, by the picture of the author on the back of the dust cover.
Raymond Chandler
Though fame is a help in selling books, it is of small use in writing them.
Ben Hecht
Publishers don't nurse you; they buy and sell you. P.D. James
Advice on dealing with publishers: Express gratitude when appropriate.
Cynthia Ozick
Technology has revolutionized the business of writing, enabling me to work better, smarter, and more creatively. Richard Blodgett
I have never touched a typewriter, and still less a word processor. Iris Murdoch
A good editor is like a collaborator. Don't treat them like a censor. But don't defer too much. Ken Auletta
Editors are in the business of making good books better. Richard Balkin
A publicity plan will only be as effective as you are. Russell Perreault
You want to sound as perky and enthusiastic as possible, on a book tour, so your listening audience won't suspect that you really, deep down inside, don't want to talk about your book ever, ever, ever again. Dave Barry
A good many young writers make the mistake of enclosing a stamped, self-addressed envelope, big enough for the manuscript to come back in. That is too much temptation to the editor. Ring Lardner
It circulated for five years, through the halls of fifteen publishers, and finally ended up with Vanguard Press, which, as you can see, is rather deep into the alphabet. Patrick Dennis, commenting on Auntie Mame
Now that you've read (selected) advice from the pros, remember that writers write, so please keep your pen moving. Good luck and don't give up! CJ
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SOURCES FOR QUOTES AND QUIPS
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Advice to Writers. Edited and compiled by Jon Winokur. New York: Pantheon Books, 1999.
Balkin, Richard. A Writer's Guide to Book Publishing, 3rd Edition. New York: Plume, Penguin Books, 1994.
King, Steven. On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. New York: Scribner Books, 2000.
Plotnik, Arthur. The Elements of Authorship. Lincoln, Nebraska: toExcel Press, 2000.
Strunk, William and E.B. White. The Elements of Style. New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., 1979 and still in print. Buy it, study it, enjoy it.
Zinsser, William. On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Nonfiction. New York: HarperPerennial, 1976, 1980, 1985, 1988, 1990, 1994, 1998, 2005. Note: Celebrating a 30th Anniversary Edition. In my opinion, this is the best "how-to-write" book in existence for nonfiction writers.
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My E-mail: NewAgeWriting@aol.com
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A professional writer is an amateur who didn't quit.
Richard Bach
© Copyright 2008 Christine Jette. All rights reserved.
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