Quotes on Writing

Creative writers are always greater than the causes that they represent.

Writing is, of course, a solitary occupation. But for many writers, myself included, it's through writing that we make certain vital connections.

I cry, sometimes, because I'm not 20 years younger, and I'm not healthy. But if I were, I would even sacrifice my writing to enter politics.

Bad writing is like a bad relationship. Don't be addicted to it just because you are familiar with its ways. Let go.

I know the world is filled with troubles and many injustices. But reality is as beautiful as it is ugly. I think it is just as important to sing about beautiful mornings as it is to talk about slums. I just couldn't write anything without hope in it.

Once I thought to write a history of the immigrants in America. Then I discovered that the immigrants were American history.

The Florida in my novels is not as seedy as the real Florida. It's hard to stay ahead of the curve. Every time I write a scene that I think is the sickest thing I have ever dreamed up, it is surpassed by something that happens in real life.

In science, you really do need to have a purpose-driven life. You will succeed to the extent that you get the most out of your career so that you can give the most back. Try to be an addict, driven to achieve discoveries, learning new things, and then writing about them.

I don't write songs, songs write me. ... Writing a song can be agony or ecstasy. It can take half an hour or half a year. ... The popular song is America's greatest ambassador.

Some writers take to drink, others take to audiences.

Writers, you know, are the beggars of Western society.

Education is not simply to learn to read and write. It's emancipation. It makes you free.

When I'm writing a book, I don't have any responsibility to anyone. I'm solitary. I'm writing on my own. I write by hand. And I write every day. I mean, it's part of my daily discipline.

No man understands a deep book until he has seen and lived at least part of its contents.

God writes a lot of comedy... the trouble is, he's stuck with so many bad actors who don't know how to play funny.

His courtesy was somewhat extravagant. He would write and thank people who wrote to thank him for wedding presents and when he encountered anyone as punctilious as himself the correspondence ended only with death.

We do not write in order to be understood; we write in order to understand.

Writing is the art of repeating oneself without anyone noticing.

Write about it by day and dream about it by night.

The books that help you most are those which make you think that most. The hardest way of learning is that of easy reading; but a great book that comes from a great thinker is a ship of thought, deep freighted with truth and beauty.

Write what you want bottomless from bottom of the mind.