“If you write to impress it will always be bad, but if you write to express it will be good”
Thornton Wilder (1897–1975) American playwright and novelist
“This was such bad writing that it was good.”
The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze (1934), A Cold Day
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William Saroyan190
American writer 1908–1981Related quotes
“People do not deserve good writing, they are so pleased with bad.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet
“Don't believe anything they write about you, good or bad.”
Babe Ruth (1895–1948) American baseball player
Advice to Red Grange as quoted in The Wicked City: Chicago from Kenna to Capone (1998) by Curt Johnson and R. Craig Sautter, p. 159; Unsourced variant: Don't ever forget two things I'm going to tell you. One, don't believe everything that's written about you. Two, don't pick up too many checks.
Context: Keed, I'll give you a little bit of advice. Don't believe anything they write about you, good or bad. Two, get the dough while the getting is good, but don't break your heart trying to get it. And don't pick up too many checks!
“All poets write bad poetry. Bad poets publish them, good poets burn them.”
Umberto Eco (1932–2016) Italian semiotician, essayist, philosopher, literary critic, and novelist
“It takes writing a billion bad words before you get to the good ones.”
Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) American writer
“Your writing is never as good as you hoped; but never as bad as you feared.”
Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist
Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) Russian dramatist, author and physician
Letter to A.S. Suvorin (May 4, 1889)
Letters
Aldous Huxley book Point Counter Point
Variant: A bad book is as much of a labour to write as a good one; it comes as sincerely from the author's soul.
Source: Point Counter Point
Quoted in Naomi Hamilton, "The A-Z of Programming Languages: Forth," http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php/id;766897508 Computerworld (2008-06-27)