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"302 Writing Quotes

Not having any real direction, one writer would lead me to another.

Another Any Direction Having
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I love writing about my job because I loved it, and it was a particularly interesting one when I was a young man. It was like holidays with pay to me.

About Because Holidays I Love
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I will write another book if I feel like it.
Another Book Feel I Feel
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Writing in English is the most ingenious torture ever devised for sins committed in previous lives. The English reading public explains the reason why.

Committed English Ever Explains
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I always was a writer, but then I wanted to do stand-up because I thought that was a way that I could perform what I wrote.

Always Because Could Perform
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And, you know, I liked writing humor. Well, I should say, I wanted to write seriously, but it kept turning funny.

Funny Humor Kept Know
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First person narrative is a very effective tool but you have to know as a writer how to make it work.

Effective First First Person How
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Writing for me is cutting out the fat and getting to the meaning.
Cutting Fat Getting Me
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Newt Gingrich wrote a novel, and he's a short story. Bill Clinton wrote a biography, and he's a novel.

Bill Bill Clinton Biography Clinton
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As a writer, you have to be near people and hear stuff. I'm a hamburger and cheese kind of fellow; I'm not Henry David Thoreau.

Cheese David Fellow Hamburger
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You can't write just anything. Your story needs structure.

Anything Just Needs Story
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I don't like a bunch of writers sitting around, puffing smoke, they like this book, he wrote this - tell me a dirty joke, you know. It's just not my style, I've never been that kind of person.

Around Been Book Bunch
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The hard part about writing about a guy like John Brown is that he was so serious, and his cause was so serious, that most of what's been written about him is really serious and, in my opinion, a little bit boring.

About Been Bit Boring
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I cannot recall any moment of clarity about becoming a writer. I always liked to read. That's what did it.

About Always Any Becoming
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I tend to write out the first iteration of a lyric here and then go over here and make variations on it, on the page opposite.

First Go Here Lyric
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When you write a song, it may come from a personal space, but it very seldom actually represents you. It comes out of a sort of mood of melancholy, somehow. It's almost theatrical.

Actually Almost Come May
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Songwriting is too mysterious and uncontrolled a process for me to direct it towards any one thing.

Any Direct Me Mysterious
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Though 'Fire and Rain' is very personal, for other people it resonates as a sort of commonly held experience... And that's what happens with me. I write things for personal reasons, and then in some cases it... can be a shared experience.

Cases Commonly Experience Fire
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A person who can write a long letter with ease, cannot write ill.
Cannot Ease Ill Letter
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Sometimes the better the writing, the harder it is to play because you really want to service it.

Service Play Better Harder
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It's always like you write a poem when you can't really say what you're trying to say.

Trying Poem Write Really
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I knew that I had to write my memoirs.

Had Knew Memoirs Write
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This might be one way to start talking about differences between the early postmodern writers of the fifties and sixties and their contemporary descendants.

Between Contemporary Descendants Differences
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It looks like you can write a minimalist piece without much bleeding. And you can. But not a good one.

Bleeding Good Like Looks
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...you can't write well with only the nice parts of your character, and only about nice things. And I don't want even to try anymore. I want to use everything, including hate and envy and lust and fear.

Write Character Hate Fear
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Real literature, like travel, is always a surprise.

Real Litrature Travel Surprise
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With a pencil and paper, I could revise the world.

Pencil Paper Revise World
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An author who sets his reader on sounding the depths of his own thoughts serves him best.

Author Reader Depths Thoughts
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It is one of the paradoxes of American literature that our writers are forever looking back with love and nostalgia at lives they couldn't wait to leave.

One Paradoxes American Litrature
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In an age like ours, which is not given to letter-writing, we forget what an important part it used to play in people's lives.

Age Given Letter-writing Important
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I am not retiring. Writers don't retire. Writers never stop writing.

I Retiring Writers Never
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A writer's job is to tell the truth.

Writers Job Tell Truth
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I read the newspapers avidly. It is my one form of continuous fiction.

Read Newspapers Avidly One
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You do have a story inside you; it lies articulate and waiting to be written — behind your silence and your suffering.

You Story Inside Waiting
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To write something you have to risk making a fool of yourself.
Write Something Risk Fool
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I must write it all out, at any cost. Writing is thinking. It is more than living, for it is being conscious of living.

Writing is Thinking More than Living
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You can’t just write and write and put things in a drawer. They wither without the warm sun of someone else’s appreciation.

Just write Put things.a drawer Warm sun Appreciation
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I write because writing is the gift God has given me to help people in the world.

Write Gift God Help
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Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere.

Almost Good Writing Begins
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The task of a writer is not to solve the problem but to state the problem correctly.

The task A writer To solve The problem
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We can destroy what we have written, but we cannot unwrite it.

We Destroy What Written
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There is no way of writing well and also of writing easily.

No way Writing well Easily
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The practice of fiction can be dangerous: it puts ideas into the head of the world.

Practice Fiction Dangerous Ideas
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Writers are rarely their own best critics, nor are critics.

Writers Rarely Best Critics
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Writing is a combination of intangible creative fantasy and appallingly hard work.

Writing Combination Intangible creative Fantasy
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To write does not mean to convert the real into words but to make the power of the word real.

To write Convert The real Into words
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Writing only leads to more writing.

Writing Leads More
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Writing about the unholy is one way of writing about what is sacred.

Writing about The unholy One way Scared
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Always be nice to those younger than you, because they are the ones who will be writing about you.

Nice Younger Ones Writing
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Writing is thinking. To write well is to think clearly. That's why it's so hard.

Writing Thinking Clearly Hard
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