“The two hardest things about writing are starting and not stopping.”
Stewart O'Nan (1961) American writer
“The two hardest things about writing are starting and not stopping.”
Stewart O'Nan (1961) American writer
“Maybe the hardest thing in writing is simply to tell the truth about things as we see them.”
John Steinbeck (1902–1968) American writer
Source: https://www.quora.com/How-do-I-become-historian-without-studying-history-in-University
Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist
A Letter from Cuba (1934)
Context: The hardest thing to do is to write straight honest prose on human beings. First you have to know the subject; then you have to know how to write. Both take a lifetime to learn, and anybody is cheating who takes politics as a way out. All the outs are too easy, and the thing itself is too hard to do.
“The challenge is to write about real things magically.”
Raymond Chandler (1888–1959) Novelist, screenwriter
Source: Selected Letters
William Zinsser (1922–2015) writer, editor, journalist, literary critic, professor
Source: On Writing Well (Fifth Edition, orig. pub. 1976), Chapter 2, Simplicity, p. 12.
Nigella Lawson (1960) British food writer, journalist and broadcaster
As quoted in "Reality bites" by Simon Hattenstone in The Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,784535,00.html (2 September 2002)
Pauline Kael (1919–2001) American film critic
Quoted in Francis Davis, Afterglow: A Last Conversation with Pauline Kael (Da Capo, 2003, ISBN 0-306-81230-4).