Quotes about writing
page 51

“You must understand the whole of life,
not just one little part of it.
that is why you must read,
that is why you must look at the skies,
that is why you must sing and dance,
and write poems and suffer and understand,
for all that is life.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986) Indian spiritual philosopher

Life, Understanding, Suffering, Singing

“When I first started writing, I was thinking of it as a book about mass incarceration, and mass incarceration is not a plot. It’s not a story. It’s not a character. I was at Harvard doing research on this subject, and I felt like I had a lot of information, but I had not yet found my story because I had to realize that I am a novelist. I’m not a sociologist. I’m not a documentarian. I’m not an ethnographer. And I found the story, actually, through eavesdropping…”

Tayari Jones (1970) American writer

Source: On how she chose the topic of mass incarceration for her novel An American Marriage in “If I Can’t Cry, Nobody Cries: An Interview with Tayari Jones” https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2018/02/08/cant-cry-nobody-cries-interview-tayari-jones/ in The Paris Review (2018 Feb 8)

Books, Thinking

“Okay, firstly, academic historians write academic history for academics. It's a myth that you can't be a historian without having a degree. Ian Fletcher, the globally acknowledged expert in the Peninsular War, doesn't have a degree. He always tells me that, “The books we write are the ones which academics read to get their degrees from.””

Rick D Phillips

Source: https://www.quora.com/How-do-I-become-historian-without-studying-history-in-University

War, Books, History, Reading

“Read history. That’s it. Read history. Read and read and read in both primary and secondary sources. Learn to evaluate and compare. And then… write. Writing will be the hardest thing you ever do. But it’s the goal— write about the past and how we see it.”

Christian Desaix

Source: https://www.quora.com/How-do-I-become-historian-without-studying-history-in-University

History, Learning, Reading, Past

“Even when I was a struggling actor, I was writing scripts, which were terrible, but I was fueled by a belief that I had to create the door. The right door wasn’t always going to open for me. Sometimes I was going to have to just crash through it or build one where there was no door before.”

Simu Liu (1989) Chinese-born Canadian actor

Source: "‘Shang-Chi’ Star Simu Liu on “Betrayal” of ‘Kim’s Convenience’ Cancellation" in The Hollywood Reporter (21 May 2021) https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/shang-chi-star-simu-liu-1234955154/

“Men begin to reject simple things, and to write tracts, interpretations, and philosophical studies. They also begin to feel that they know a better way.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

Source: Unsourced

Men, Way, Feeling, Study

“Creativity is the result of a struggle between vitality and form. As anyone who has tried to write a sonnet or scan poetry, is aware, the forms ideally do not take away from the creativity but may add to it.”

Rollo May book Love and Will

Source: Love and Will (1969), Ch. 13 : Communion of Consciousness, p. 320

“Those writings of mine aren't anything. There is nothing instructive in what I wrote.”

Mao Zedong (1893–1976) Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China

Excerpt of meeting with Nixon 1972, quoted in The Road to War: Presidential Commitments Honored and Betrayed https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Road_to_War/SDb3PSD__KwC?hl=en&gbpv=0 (May 9, 2013) by Marvin Kalb <br class="br">1970s

“There’s something about writing books that gives us the permission to discuss things that aren’t as easy to talk about in everyday life. To me, the whole point of writing books is to look at the unexamined, the unspeakable, and the unarticulated.”

Susan Cain (1968) self-help writer

Mineo, Liz (interviewer), "That feeling you get when listening to sad music? It's humanity", The Harvard Gazette, May 11, 2022.

Life, Books

“People who write about spring training not being necessary have never tried to throw a baseball.”

Sandy Koufax (1935) American baseball player

As quoted in "Sandy Began Slowly and Then Got Worse; At Tired Arm Stage" by Charles Maher, in The Los Angeles Times (April 14, 1966)

People, Spring, Training

“In fact writing a computer program is a pretty good way to summarize knowledge about any set of rules.”

Richard Dawkins book Climbing Mount Improbable

Source: Climbing Mount Improbable (1996), Chapter 2, “Silken Fetters” (p. 58)

Way, Knowledge

“Be constantly on the lookout for people with a noble soul, extreme emotions, spontaneous smiles and sincere looks. People to write your future with.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) Siate costantemente alla ricerca di persone con un animo nobile, emozioni estreme, sorrisi spontanei e sguardi sinceri. Persone con le quali scrivere il vostro futuro.
Source: prevale.net

People, Smile, Soul, Future

“Sometimes I write to keep from going crazy. There’s a world of things I don’t feel free to talk to anyone about.”

Octavia E. Butler book Parable of the Sower

Source: Parable of the Sower (1993), p. 52

World, Feeling

“To write something long, sophisticated, and coherent means, at least in part, to become more complex, articulate, and deeper in personality.”

Jordan Peterson book Beyond Order

Source: Books, Beyond Order (2021), p. 185

Parting, Personality

“Defy the law! Write the heartbroken poetry of the World!”

Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) American writer

This appears not to be a Kerouac quote. It has not been found in any of Kerouac's published work.
Misattributed

World, Law

“There are no indecipherable writings, any writing system produced by man can be read by man.”

Yuri Knorozov (1922–1999) Soviet and Russian mesoamericanist (1922-1999)

Epigraphic Atlas of Petén Phase 1 http://cemyk.org/pages/en/publications-projects.php

Reading

“Beyond the confines of my tiny country, my words seem to count for little, just as the anguished cry of my people still astonishingly leaves you mute and deaf. So I will continue to write until the silence is pierced.”

Aslan Maskhadov (1951–2005) Chechen warlord

Excerpts of Open Letter to the Leaders Of G-7 Nations (2002)

People, Silence, Cry, Country

“Steal the moments from time, get excited, write the story leaving a footprint of your existence, have fun, forget the bad moments thinking about the future with optimism, have sex with the person who can give you pleasure at the mere thought and remember to live by daring, dreaming and loving. Life is one, take note!”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: Ruba gli attimi al tempo, emozionati, scrivi la storia lasciando una traccia della tua esistenza, divertiti, dimentica i brutti momenti pensando al futuro con ottimismo, fai sesso con la persona che può darti piacere al solo pensiero e ricordati di vivere osando, sognando ed amando. La vita è una, prendi nota!
Source: prevale.net

Love, Life, Pleasure, Dreams

“After you have settled yourself in a place as favorable as possible to the concentration of your mind upon itself, have writing materials brought to you. Put yourself in as passive, or receptive, a state of mind as you can. Forget about your genius, your talents, and the talents of everyone else. Keep reminding yourself that literature is one of the saddest roads that lead to everything. Write quickly, without any preconceived subject, fast enough so that you will not remember what you're writing and be tempted to reread what you have written. The first sentence will come spontaneously, so compelling is the truth that with every passing second there is a sentence unknown to our consciousness which is only crying out to be heard.”

André Breton (1896–1966) French writer

Le Manifeste du Surréalisme, Andre Breton (Manifesto of Surrealism; 1924)

Truth, Literature, Cry, Forgetting

““To write my essay I had to read books differently, without giving myself over to either fear or adoration. ””

Tara Westover book Educated

Books, Fear, Reading

““To write my essay I had to read books differently, without giving myself over to either fear or adoration. Because Burke had defended the British monarchy, Dad would have said he was an agent of tyranny. He wouldn't have wanted the book in the house. There was a thrill in trusting myself to read the words. I felt a similar thrill in reading Madison, Hamilton and Jay, especially on those occasions when I discarded their conclusions in favor of Burke's, or when it seemed to me that their ideas were not really different in substance, only in form. There were wonderful suppositions embedded in this method of reading: that books are not tricks, and that I was not feeble””

Tara Westover book Educated

Books, Fear, Idea, Reading

“Writing and reading decrease our sense of isolation. They deepen and widen and expand our sense of life: they feed the soul. When writers make us shake our heads with the exactness of their prose and their truths, and even make us laugh about ourselves or life, our buoyancy is restored. We are given a shot at dancing with, or at least clapping along with, the absurdity of life, instead of being squashed by it over and over again.”

Anne Lamott (1954) Novelist, essayist, memoirist, activist

Life, Truth, Soul, Sense

This quote waiting for review.

“The sooner Mr. Parkinson realises the fact that true education is not an ability to write in copperplate work lengthy and useless problems in arithmetic or memorise long strings of capes and bays, the better.”

Francis McMellon Francis McMellon (1892–1976) was an English headma

Source: McMellon, F. (1921). Our Modern Education. Lancashire Evening Post. 11 March 1921, p.4.

Education, Problem

“Writing as a process of personal expression is an effort to provide meaning to life. Whether it is in the form of poetry which gives a touch of beauty to what we think or feel, or novels or stories as imaginative imitations of life. Whether it will succeed or fail, at least the writing will make us wiser in interpreting our own lives.”

Titon Rahmawan

Life, Beauty, Feeling, Imagination

“Every human writes their own history. Some are important, some are not. Some influenced so many people and of course some did not.”

Titon Rahmawan

People, History

“What is this nonsense? We're not here at the moment. At least, we don't expect to be. Trying to get out of what people think of themselves. All this futility. The earth we walk on is slowly burning.

Is that the kind of statement you want to write? You shout? Will it end up in vain? The rebellion of desire. There is no sanctity or half-truth.

All that nonsense is fake. The hatred that people cultivate from their own disbelief. A conflict of the soul, an inner struggle, or whatever you want to call it. Where will they go? After years and centuries of waiting. Will we find our way or will we forever be lost?

For too long we have slept in the illusion of this madness. This rage. Things we don't believe to be true. Everyone looking for their own truth. Ignorant and indifferent to each other.

Do we feel lucky with our ignorance? With all our naivety? Accepting everything without being able to fight back? Have we been blinded by pseudo-reality, which does not touch our very essence?

What kind of truth are we still debating? What authenticity are we still looking for? Those of you who feel poor, who are still confined by suffering. Arise, live, lift your own burdens! If you have not been able to lighten the burden of others.”

Titon Rahmawan

People, Truth, Way, Feeling

“The follies, it's nice to live them together. Indelible moments of pure emotion that write the story of a true love.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: Le follie, è bello viverle insieme. Indelebili momenti di pura emozione che scrivono la storia di un vero amore.
Source: prevale.net

Love

“When you feel like you can't do it, keep creating, keep writing, keep playing, keep living, be real: choose yourself. That will change everything.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: Quando vi sembrerà di non farcela, continuate a creare, a scrivere, a suonare, a vivere, ad essere veri: sceglietevi. Questo, cambierà tutto.
Source: prevale.net

Feeling, Change

“Every milestone you achieve with sacrifice will contribute to writing the story of your life.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: Ogni traguardo raggiunto con sacrificio contribuirà a scrivere la storia della tua vita.
Source: prevale.net

Life

“To create positive music, it's necessary to be in a good mood, because writing music mainly means expressing your own emotions and sensations.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: Per creare musica positiva, è necessario essere di buon umore, perché scrivere musica significa principalmente esprimere le proprie emozioni e sensazioni.
Source: prevale.net

Music, Mood

“In life it's fundamental to find a special person, above all to find someone that who is always consistent with what he says, what he writes, what he does, what he thinks and what he feels.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: Nella vita è fondamentale trovare una persona speciale, soprattutto trovare qualcuno che sia sempre coerente con ciò che dice, ciò che scrive, ciò che fa, ciò che pensa e ciò che prova.
Source: prevale.net

Life, Feeling, Thinking, Personality

Quotes about writing page 51

Quotes about writing
page 51