Vol. 1, pp. 4–5
A History of Criticism and Literary Taste in Europe from the Earliest Texts to the Present Day
“Sit down to write what you have thought, and not to think what you shall write.”
Page 180.
A Grammar of the English Language (1818)
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William Cobbett 58
English pamphleteer, farmer and journalist 1763–1835Related quotes
"Thomas Love Peacock: The Novel of Ideas" (1980)
1980s, The Second American Revolution (1983)
Variant: In any case, write what you know will always be excellent advice to those who ought not to write at all.
Source: The Essential Gore Vidal
track 11, "Three Easy Payments"
Mitch All Together (2003)
“How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.”
August 19, 1851
Journals (1838-1859)
Variant: How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.
“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”
Variant: There's nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein.
“If you want to be a writer-stop talking about it and sit down and write!”
“I find that most people know what a story is until they sit down to write one.”
Letter to Horace Davenport (3 April 1989).