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Writer's Notes - By Jeanne Dininni

 
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Here are a few more quotes by writers on writing. Some are thought-provoking, some brutally honest, some inspiring, and some simply clever--but whatever your thinking about the art or the craft, you should find something here that will catch your fancy!

Here goes:

There is only one trait that marks the writer. He is always watching. It's a kind of trick of mind and he is born with it. ~Morley Callaghan~

Nobody reads a mystery to get to the middle. They read it to get to the end. If it's a letdown, they won't buy anymore. The first page sells that book. The last page sells your next book. ~Mickey Spillane~

Autobiography is an obituary in serial form with the last installment missing. ~Quentin Crisp~

A poet's autobiography is his poetry. Anything else can only be a footnote. ~Yevgeny Yevtushenko~

Books are...funny little portable pieces of thought. ~Susan Sontag~

I never desire to converse with a man who has written more books than he has read. ~Samuel Johnson~

Journalism is literature in a hurry. ~Matthew Arnold~

Literature is the question minus the answer. ~Roland Barthes~

Literature is recognizable through its capacity to evoke more than it says. ~Anthony Burgess~

A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author. ~G.K. Chesterton~

To be a poet is a condition rather than a profession. ~Robert Graves~

The poet marries the language, and out of this marriage the poem is born. ~W.H. Auden~

A poem begins in delight and ends in wisdom. ~Robert Frost~

It's easier to write a mediocre poem than to understand a good one. ~Montaigne~

In a poem the words should be as pleasing to the ear as the meaning is to the mind. ~Marianne Moore~

Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings...in a man who has thought long and deeply. ~William Wordsworth~

You write by sitting down and writing. There's no particular time or place--you suit yourself, your nature. How one works, assuming he's disciplined, doesn't matter. ~Bernard Malamud~

I put a piece of paper under my pillow, and when I could not sleep I wrote in the dark. ~Henry David Thoreau~

When I stop (working), the rest of the day is posthumous. I'm only really alive when I'm working. ~Tennessee Williams~

Words are loaded pistols. ~Jean-Paul Sartre~

Words are like leaves, and where they most abound,
Much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found. ~Alexander Pope~

All the fun's in how you say a thing. ~Robert Frost~

The greatest possible mint of style is to make the words absolutely disappear into the thought. ~Nathaniel Hawthorne~

I do not understand this chronic illness. I wish I had gone to law school. ~Darryl Pinckney~

The best time for planning a book is when you're doing the dishes. ~Agatha Christie~

I talk out the lines as I write. ~Tennessee Williams~

If I could, I would always work in silence and obscurity, and let my efforts be known by their results. ~Emily Bronte~

If writers were good businessmen, they'd have too much sense to be writers. ~Irvin S. Cobb~

Writing is an exploration. You start from nothing and learn as you go. ~E. L. Doctorow~



Hope a few of these provocative thoughts have set your own creative juices flowing!


Happy writing!
Jeanne



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