“I can’t write five words but that I change seven.”
Dorothy Parker (1893–1967) American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist
“It takes me six months to do a story. I think it out and then write it sentence by sentence—no first draft. I can’t write five words but that I change seven.”
Interview, The Paris Review (Summer 1956)
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Do you have more details about the quote "It takes me six months to do a story. I think it out and then write it sentence by sentence—no first draft. I can’t wri…" by Dorothy Parker?
Dorothy Parker172
American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist 1893–1967Related quotes
“I begin with writing the first
sentence—and trusting to Almighty
God for the second.”
Laurence Sterne book The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
Source: The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
“All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence you know.”
Ernest Hemingway book A Moveable Feast
Source: A Moveable Feast (1964), Ch. 2
Context: I would stand and look out over the roofs of Paris and think, "Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence you know."
William Zinsser (1922–2015) writer, editor, journalist, literary critic, professor
Source: On Writing Well (Fifth Edition, orig. pub. 1976), Chapter 2, Simplicity, p. 12.
Diana Wynne Jones (1934–2011) English children's fantasy writer
Source: Magids Series, The Merlin Conspiracy (2003), p. 7.
First lines of the novel.