Writing Quotes

But the reality is when you write a song, you should be able to strip away all the instruments and just have a song right there with an acoustic guitar and a voice, and the song should be good.

Ugh! How many stories about love, copulation, marriage and death already exist, not one of which tells the truth! How sick I am of well-constructed plots and brilliant writing!

Every great man nowadays has his disciples, and it is usually Judas who writes the biography.

Led Zeppelin didn't write tunes that everybody liked, they left that to the Bee Gees.

Writing is a struggle against silence.

The usual picture of Socrates is of an ugly little plebeian who inspired a handsome young nobleman to write long dialogues on large topics.

You write a story about loneliness, and you grab them all because everybody's an expert on that one.

All readers come to fiction as willing accomplices to your lies. Such is the basic goodwill contract made the moment we pick up a work of fiction.

Christ is the most unique person of history. No man can write a history of the human race without giving first and foremost place to the penniless Teacher of Nazareth.

The chief virtue that language can have is clarity.

That is what the title of artist means: one who perceives more than his fellows, and who records more than he has seen.

You may find many contradictory statements and philosophies within my writings. However, to this I will say such is life, for life is full of contradictions.

When we deny our stories, They define us. When we own our stories, we get to write the ending.

People shout out for songs and I don't even remember writing them.

Write while the heat is in you. The writer who postpones the recording of his thoughts uses an iron which has cooled to burn a hole with. He cannot inflame the minds of his audience.

I was a late bloomer. But anyone who blooms at all, ever, is very lucky.

I don't see how you can write anything of value if you don't offend someone.

Writing songs is cheaper than going to therapy.

A life spent writing has taught me to be wary of words. Those that seem clearest are often the most treacherous.

The United States has written the white history of the United States. It now needs to write the black, Latino, Indian, Asian and Caribbean history of the United States.

I've always written songs that were confessional, acoustic, wordy - my writing style matches my personality. The music always has to match the mouth it comes out of.

Show up, show up, show up, and after a while the muse shows up, too. If she doesn’t show up invited, eventually she just shows up

I write with my past, about the future, for the present

Writing, for me, means humility. It’s a process that involves fear and doubt, especially if you’re writing honestly.

I have found that a story leaves a deeper impression when it is impossible to tell which side the author is on.

Write your injuries in dust, your benefits in marble.

The whites, who are educated and civilized, swindle me, and I am not hard to swindle because I do not know how to read and write.

I'd like to write some songs that are so good that nobody understands them. Not even myself.

The road to hell is paved with works-in-progress.

We exponents of horror do much better than those Method actors. We make the unbelievable believable. More often than not, they make the believable unbelievable.

A letter always seemed to me like immortality because it is the mind alone without corporeal friend.

I am a woman, and I am a Latina. Those are the things that make my writing distinctive. Those are the things that give my writing power.

The thing is, unfortunately, I write the best songs when I'm miserable.

Sit down to write what you have thought, and not to think what you shall write.

I would love to see more women directors because they represent half of the population and gave birth to the whole world. Without them the rest [of the world] are not getting to know the whole story.

Being a poet is one of the unhealthier jobs--no regular hours, so many temptations!

We do not write in order to be understood; we write in order to understand.

Writing a novel is not method acting and I find it easy to step out of it at cocktail hour.

What was the use of my having come from Oakland it was not natural to have come from there yes write about it if I like or anything if I like but not there, there is no there there.

Set your fantasies in the here and now and then, if challenged, claim to be writing Magical Realism.

Someone who wants to write should make an effort to write a little something every day. Writing in this sense is the same as athletes who practice a sport every day to keep their skills honed.

Your emotional life is not written in cement during childhood. You write each chapter as you go along.

Ira Gershwin, shame on him. I mean, some of the writing.

It's true that I'm taking a break from writing a regular column to do other things but it's got nothing to do with what dear Simon has or has not written.

it wasn't by accident that the Gettysburg address was so short.

I hate government. I'm apolitical. Write that down. I'm not a Republican.

We decided that the French could never write user-friendly software because they're so rude.

Poetic justice, poetic justice.. if I told you that a flower bloom in a dark room would you trust it. I mean I write poems in these songs.

Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.

Architecture is a discipline that takes time and patience. If one spends enough years writing complex novels one might be able, someday, to construct a respectable haiku.