Quotes Tagged "writing"

As it happened, all three of us turned out to be real writers--a coincidence almost too large to be termed mere coincidence in a society where literally tens of thousands (maybe hundreds of thousands) of college students aspire to the writer's trade and where bare hundreds actually break through.

It seems as if I can only thing if I write my journal, it just connects the part of my head that is busy doing things with the part that is busy thinking about everything else. I know all these pepole are so busy because they love each other and me. We are a noisy crowd of love

Hendaklah tukang-tukang cerita waspada terhadap hal-hal bohong dan hikayat-hikayat yang menyajikan perbuatan salah, atau yang tujuan baiknya tidak dapat difahamkan oleh umum. Atau, cerita itu merupakan satu pertarungan antara yang baik dengan buruk, lalu yang buruk mendapat pembelaan yang berlebihan sebelum dikalahkan oleh yang baik. Tanpa disedari, hal ini memberanikan orang berbuat dosa (Ihya' Ulumuddin).

On their sofas of spice and feathers, the concubines also slept fretfully. In those days the Earth was still flat, and people dreamed often of falling over edges.

For some it is harder to write a novel than to row a bathtub across the North Atlantic.

Beginnings are so important. Just finding that right moment to introduce this character, this world, it’s everything.

I spent a long time writing in obscurity. You'll spend a long time writing in obscurity.

Every letter that she types; every keystroke that she strikes- To spell your name again and again, is all she ever wants to write.

Perhaps that might be the way to write this book--to open the page and to let the stories crawl in by themselves.

Plot as such is not a major ingredient in my novels... it's often better to sail on the unconscious sea.

It is unlikely that many of us will be famous, or even remembered. But not less important than the brilliant few that lead a nation or a literature to fresh achievements, are the unknown many whose patient efforts keep the world from running backward; who guard and maintain the ancient values, even if they do not conquer new; whose inconspicuous triumph it is to pass on what they inherited from their fathers, unimpaired and undiminished, to their sons. Enough, for almost all of us, if we can hand on the torch, and not let it down; content to win the affection, if it may be, of a few who know us and to be forgotten when they in their turn have vanished. The destiny of mankind is not governed wholly by its 'stars'.

There's no way I can stop writing, it's a form of insanity.

At one time I thought the most important thing was talent. I think now that — the young man or the young woman must possess or teach himself, train himself, in infinite patience, which is to try and to try and to try until it comes right. He must train himself in ruthless intolerance. That is, to throw away anything that is false no matter how much he might love that page or that paragraph. The most important thing is insight, that is ... curiosity to wonder, to mull, and to muse why it is that man does what he does. And if you have that, then I don't think the talent makes much difference, whether you've got that or not. [Press conference, University of Virginia, May 20, 1957]

It's a finger snapping kind of day.

My heart in passion, and my head on rhymes.

The main question to a novel is -- did it amuse? were you surprised at dinner coming so soon? did you mistake eleven for ten? were you too late to dress? and did you sit up beyond the usual hour? If a novel produces these effects, it is good; if it does not -- story, language, love, scandal itself cannot save it. It is only meant to please; and it must do that or it does nothing.

A word only writes Its night and rides Its dream.

Go where the pain is, go where the pleasure is.

When people read his books they have an uncontrollable desire to hang the author in the town square. I can’t think of a higher honor for a writer.

To begin impatiently is the worst mistake a writer can make