A Writer Writes

Since it's my turn to blog and my husband is still off on his five day break (translation: my time is not my own) I decided to share some favorite quotes about the writing world. Enjoy and remember what someone once told me: "A writer writes!" [This wisdom was shared with me during a trip to Nauvoo that we enjoyed with two other families---close friends. After noticing that I was frantically scribbling notes everywhere we toured, one woman remarked that it was obvious I was meant to be a writer since that's all I seemed to be doing. She forgot that I also took a plethora of pictures, so in that vein, I suspect a photographer photos . . . or words to that effect. ;) ] Enjoy!

Quotes About Writing

"A writer is a person for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people." -Thomas Mann

"If a writer wrote merely for his time, I would have to break my pen and throw it away." -Victor Hugo

"The novel is an event in consciousness. Our aim isn't to copy actuality, but to modify and recreate our sense of it. The novelist is inviting the reader to watch a performance in his own brain." -George Buchanan

"There is no such thing as public opinion. There is only published opinion." -Winston Churchill

"There are three rules for writing the novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are." -W. Somerset Maugham

"I think I did pretty well, considering I started out with nothing but a bunch of blank paper." -Steve Martin

"After being turned down by numerous publishers, he had decided to write for posterity." -George Ade

"A writer should have another lifetime to see if he's appreciated." -Jorge Luis Borges

"This report, by its very length, defends itself against the risk of being read." -Winston Churchill

"By writing much, one learns to write well." -Robert Southey

"Write quickly and you will never write well. Write well, and you will soon write quickly." -Marcus Fabius Quintilianus

"I have made this letter longer, because I have not had the time to make it shorter." -Blaise Pascal

"The ill and unfit choice of words wonderfully obstructs the understanding." -Francis Bacon

"It's none of their business that you have to learn to write. Let them think you were born that way." -Ernest Hemingway

"There is no great writing, only great rewriting." -Justice Brandeis

"Writing is 1 percent inspiration, and 99 percent elimination." -Louise Brooks

"Your manuscript is both good and original, but the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good." -Samuel Johnson

"I have been successful probably because I have always realized that I knew nothing about writing and have merely tried to tell an interesting story entertainingly." -Edgar Rice Burroughs

"No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader." -Robert Frost

"Each writer is born with a repertory company in his head and as you get older, you become more skillful casting them." -Gore Vidal

"Stories have a beginning, a middle and an end. But not necessarily in that order." -Robert Silverberg