“Good writing is lean and confident.”
William Zinsser (1922–2015) writer, editor, journalist, literary critic, professor
Source: On Writing Well (Fifth Edition, orig. pub. 1976), Chapter 13, Bits & Pieces, p. 114.
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Do you have more details about the quote "I must be lean & write & make worlds beside this to live in." by Sylvia Plath?
Sylvia Plath342
American poet, novelist and short story writer 1932–1963Related quotes
Xiaolu Guo (1973) Chinese-British novelist and film director
Once Upon A Time in the East: A Story of Growing up, Chatto & Windus, 2017, page 259 (ISBN 9781784740689).
Memoir, 2017
“For I must write to The Times tonight, and save the world from sin.”
A. P. Herbert (1890–1971) British politician
"The Saviours", Laughing Ann (1925).
Liliana Segre (1930) Italian Holocaust survivor and senator for life
During a seminar at Milan’s IULM University, speaking of the haters; as quoted in "Escort for Liliana Segre following insults and threats" https://www.corriere.it/english/19_novembre_07/escort-for-liliana-segre-following-insults-and-threats-2c3dea64-015f-11ea-bfaf-9602a8f3f6c1.shtml, Corriere.it (7 November 2019).
“In order to write about life first you must live it.”
Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist
Gloria E. Anzaldúa (1942–2004) Chicana cultural theory, feminist theory, and queer theory
Speaking in Tongues: A Letter to Third World Women Writers, from This Bridge Called My Back
“I believe one writes because one has to create a world in which one can live.”
Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica
February 1954 The Diary of Anaïs Nin Vol. 5 (1947-1955), as quoted in Woman as Writer (1978) by Jeannette L. Webber and Joan Grumman, p. 38
Diary entries (1914 - 1974)
Context: Why one writes is a question I can answer easily, having so often asked it of myself. I believe one writes because one has to create a world in which one can live. I could not live in any of the worlds offered to me — the world of my parents, the world of war, the world of politics. I had to create a world of my own, like a climate, a country, an atmosphere in which I could breathe, reign, and recreate myself when destroyed by living. That, I believe, is the reason for every work of art.
