Quotes about Writing: B

No iron can pierce the heart with such force as a period put at the right place. ~ Isaac Babel
A professional writer is an amateur who didn't quit. ~ Richard Bach
You are never given a wish without also being given the power to make it true. You may have to work for it, however. ~ Richard Bach
When you are writing a story, every word of dialogue serves a purpose. If your characters chatter on and on, you will never sell your story. ~ Othello Bach
Dialogue has only two purposes: (1) to enhance the character, and (2) to further the plot. ~ Othello Bach
In real life we take time for pleasantries, but these are wasted words in a story. . . . get to the point quickly. ~ Othello Bach
Keep your characters moving as they talk. Hardly anyone speaks without moving. We use our hands. We shuffle our feet. We walk around, pick up items, keep working or watching television. If you keep your characters moving and describe their actions and movements, their dialogue seems more natural and keeps your reader interested in what is being said. ~ Othello Bach
There are dozens of commonly used contractions. Don’t be afraid to let your characters use them, too. ~ Othello Bach

Like contractions, sentence fragments are perfectly acceptable in fiction dialogue. ~ Othello Bach
A word is a bud attempting to become a twig. How can one not dream while writing? It is the pen which dreams. The blank page gives the right to dream. ~ Gaston Bachelard
A special kind of beauty exists which is born in language, of language, and for language. ~ Gaston Bachelard
The words of the world want to make sentences. ~ Gaston Bachelard
In writing, you discover interior sonorities in words. Dipthongs sound differently beneath the pen. One hears them with their sounds divorced. ~ Gaston Bachelard
Write down the thoughts of the moment. Those that come unsought for are commonly the most valuable. ~Francis Bacon
It seems to me that those songs that have been any good, I have nothing much to do with the writing of them. The words have just crawled down my sleeve and come out on the page. ~ Joan Baez
Everything that doesn't kill you, makes you stronger. And later on you can use it in some story. ~ Tapani Bagge
I am of the firm belief that everybody could write books and I never understand why they don't. After all, everybody speaks. Once the grammar has been learnt it is simply talking on paper and in time learning what not to say. ~ Beryl Bainbridge
The only thing I was fit for was to be a writer, and this notion rested solely on my suspicion that I would never be fit for real work, and that writing didn't require any. ~ Russell Baker
Writing makes a map, and there is something about a journey that begs to have its passage marked. ~ Christina Baldwin

Any writer, I suppose, feels that the world into which he was born is nothing less than a conspiracy against the cultivation of his talent. ~ James Baldwin
The writer's greed is appalling. He wants, or seems to want, everything and practically everybody; in another sense, and at the same time, he needs no one at all. ~ James Baldwin
Unless a writer is extremely old when he dies, in which case he has probably become a neglected institution, his death must always be seen as untimely. This is because a real writer is always shifting and changing and searching. The world has many labels for him, of which the most treacherous is the label of Success. ~ James Baldwin
We live in a world ruled by fictions of every kind — mass merchandising, advertising, politics conducted as a branch of advertising, the instant translation of science and technology into popular imagery, the increasing blurring and intermingling of identities within the realm of consumer goods, the preempting of any free or original imaginative response to experience by the television screen. We live inside an enormous novel. For the writer in particular it is less and less necessary for him to invent the fictional content of his novel. The fiction is already there. The writer's task is to invent the reality. ~ J. G. Ballard
I am a galley slave to pen and ink. ~ Honore de Balzac
If the artist does not fling himself, without reflecting, into his work, as Curtis flung himself into the yawning gulf, as the soldier flings himself into the enemy's trenches, and if, once in this crater, he does not work like a miner on whom the walls of his gallery have fallen in; if he contemplates difficulties instead of overcoming them one by one...he is simply looking on at the suicide of his own talent. ~ Honore de Balzac
Irony ... may be defined as what people miss. ~ Julian Barnes
To try to write love is to confront the muck of language: that region of hysteria where language is both too much and too little. ~ Roland Barthes
Writing, at least a craft and at its best an art, aspiring to the unique, is the most difficult to learn. ~ Jacques Barzun
Convince yourself that you are working in clay, not marble, on paper not eternal bronze: Let that first sentence be as stupid as it wishes. ~ Jacques Barzun

Grab a pen and put down some words — your name even — and a title: something to see, to revise, to carve, to do over in the opposite way. ~ ~ Jacques Barzun
All writers are thieves; theft is a necessary tool of the trade. ~ Nina Bawden
Every novel is an attempt to capture time, to weave something solid out of air. The author knows it is an impossible task - that is why he keeps on trying. ~ David Beaty
Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better. ~ Samuel Beckett
The difference between perseverance and obstinacy is that one comes from a strong will, and the other comes from a strong won't. ~ Henry Ward Beecher
It is defeat that turns bone to flint; it is defeat that turns gristle to muscle; it is defeat that makes men invincible. Do not then be afraid of defeat. You are never so near to victory as when defeated in a good cause. ~ Henry Ward Beecher
All words are pegs to hang ideas on. ~ Henry Ward Beecher
A book is so much a part of oneself that in delivering it to the public one feels as if one were pushing one’s own child out into the traffic. ~ Quentin Bell
There is only one way to defeat the enemy, and that is to write as well as one can. The best argument is an undeniably good book. ~ Saul Bellow
It took me fifteen years to discover I had no talent for writing, but I couldn't give it up because by that time I was too famous. ~ Robert Benchley

Literature in its most comprehensive sense is the autobiography of humanity. ~ Bernard Berenson
Why do writers write? Because it isn't there. ~ Thomas Berger
It is insight into human nature that is the key to the communicator's skill. For whereas the writer is concerned with what he puts into his writings, the communicator is concerned with what the reader gets out of it. He therefore becomes a student of how people read or listen. ~ William 'Bill' Bernbach
Inspiration is wonderful when it happens, but the writer must develop an approach for the rest of the time... The wait is simply too long. ~ Leonard Bernstein
About the most originality that any writer can hope to achieve honestly is to steal with good judgment. ~ Josh Billings
The great art of writing is knowing when to stop. ~ Josh Billings
When people, women included, hear that you are writing, they assume that it is simply a hobby to fill in the time between doing the washing-up and the ironing. It couldn't possibly be a profession. ~ Rachel Billington
Being a poet is one of the unhealthier jobs - no regular hours, so many temptations! ~ Elizabeth Bishop
In a sense, words are encyclopedias of ignorance because they freeze perceptions at one moment in history and then insist we continue to use these frozen perceptions when we should be doing better. ~ Edward de Bono
A best seller was a book which somehow sold well simply because it was selling well. ~ S. Boorstein

A writer should have another lifetime to see if he's appreciated. ~ Jorge Luis Borges
A writer needs loneliness, and he gets his share of it. He needs love, and he gets shared and also unshared love. He needs friendship. In fact, he needs the universe. To be a writer is, in a sense, to be a day-dreamer - to be living a kind of double life.' ~ Jorge Luis Borges
In science there is a dictum: don't add an experiment to an experiment. Don't make things unnecessarily complicated. In writing fiction, the more fantastic the tale, the plainer the prose should be. Don't ask your readers to admire your words when you want them to believe your story. ~ Ben Bova
There is probably no hell for authors in the next world - they suffer so much from critics and publishers in this. ~ C. N. Bovee
Often when I write I am trying to make words do the work of line and color. I have the painter's sensitivity to light. Much of my writing is verbal painting. ~ Elizabeth Bowen
Dialogue must appear realistic without being so. Actual realism—the lifting, as it were, of passages from a stenographer’s take-down of a ‘real life’ conversation—would be disruptive. Of what? Of the illusion of the novel. In ‘real life’ everything is diluted; in the novel everything is condensed. ~ Elizabeth Bowen
The craft of the novelist does lie first of all in story-telling. ~ Elizabeth Bowen
What must novel dialogue . . . really be and do? It must be pointed, intentional, relevant. It must crystallize situation. It must express character. It must advance plot. During dialogue, the characters confront one another. The confrontation is in itself an occasion. Each one of these occasions, throughout the novel, is unique. ~ Elizabeth Bowen
What is being said is the effect of something that has happened; at the same time, what is being said is in itself something happening, which will, in turn, leave its effect. ~ Elizabeth Bowen

Dialogue is the ideal means of showing what is between the characters. It crystallizes relationships. It should, ideally, be so effective as to make analysis or explanation of the relationships between the characters unnecessary. ~ Elizabeth Bowen
Bring all your intelligence to bear on your beginning. ~ Elizabeth Bowen
Short of a small range of physical acts—a fight, murder, lovemaking—dialogue is the most vigorous and visible inter-action of which characters in a novel are capable. Speech is what characters do to each other. ~ Elizabeth Bowen
Jane Austen, much in advance of her day, was a mistress of the use of the dialogue. She used it as dialogue should be used—to advance the story; not only to show the characters, but to advance. ~ Elizabeth Bowen
All good dialogue perhaps deals with something unprecedented. ~ Elizabeth Bowen
I take the view, and always have, that if you cannot say what you are going to say in twenty minutes you ought to go away and write a book about it. ~ Lord Brabazon
We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is, knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out. ~ Ray Bradbury
Zest. Gusto. How rarely one hears these words used. How rarely do we see people living, or for that matter, creating by them. Yet if I were asked to name the most important items in a writer’s make-up, the things that shape his material and rush him along the road to where he wants to go, I could only warn him to look to his zest, see to his gusto. ~ Ray Bradbury
You can't try to do things; you simply must do them. ~ Ray Bradbury
Any man who keeps working is not a failure. He may not be a great writer, but if he applies the old-fashioned virtues of hard, constant labor, he'll eventually make some kind of career for himself as writer. ~ Ray Bradbury

Quantity produces quality. If you only write a few things, you're doomed. ~ Ray Bradbury
You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you. ~ Ray Bradbury
The good writers touch life often. The mediocre ones run a quick hand over her. The bad ones rape her and leave her for the flies. ~ Ray Bradbury
Find out what your hero or heroine wants, and when he or she wakes up in the morning, just follow him or her all day. ~ Ray Bradbury
If you write a hundred short stories and they're all bad, that doesn't mean you've failed. You fail only if you stop writing. ~ Ray Bradbury
You will have to write and put away or burn a lot of material before you are comfortable in this medium. You might as well start now and get the work done. For I believe that eventually quantity will make for quality. ~ Ray Bradbury
My stories, run up and bite me on the leg, I respond by writing down everything that goes on during the bite. When I finish, the idea lets go and runs off. ~ Ray Bradbury
There is no great writing, only great rewriting. ~ Justice Brandeis
Writing is like hunting. There are brutally cold afternoons with nothing in sight, only the wind and your breaking heart. Then the moment when you bag something big. The entire process is beyond intoxicating. ~ Kate Braverman
The only test of work of literature is that it shall please other ages than its own. ~ Gerald Brennan
If you have other things in your life - family, friends, good productive day work - these can interact with your writing and the sum will be all the richer. ~ David Brin
Beware of self-indulgence. The romance surrounding the writing profession carries several myths: that one must suffer in order to be creative; that one must be cantankerous and objectionable in order to be bright; that ego is paramount over skill; that one can rise to a level from which one can tell the reader to go to hell. These myths, if believed, can ruin you. If you believe you can make a living as a writer, you already have enough ego. ~ David Brin

It takes most of us a long time to learn our craft. So keep at it. Don't give up. ~ Jacqueline Briskin
I don't think it is possible to give tips for finding one's voice; it's one of those things for which there aren't really any tricks or shortcuts, or even any advice that necessarily translates from writer to writer. All I can tell you is to write as much as possible. ~ Poppy Z. Brite
I got to thinking about the point in every freelancer's life where he has to decide whether he wants to A, have a social life, and do art in his spare time, or B, do art, and have a social life in his spare time. It has always seemed to me that if you have any hope of making a living as an artist – writer, musician, whatever – you absolutely must learn to tell people to leave you alone, and to mean it, and to eject them from your life if they don't respect that. This is necessary not because your job is more important than anyone else's – it isn't – but because a great many people will think of you as not having a job. 'Oh, how wonderful – you can work whenever you want to!' Well, yes, to a point, but generally 'whenever you want to' had better be most of the time, or else you won't have a roof over your head. ~ Poppy Z. Brite
Young writers shouldn't be afraid of striving to emulate their favourites. It's a good way to learn, as long as you move on from it and don't publish too many of the results. ~ Poppy Z. Brite
If you find yourself imitating another writer, that doesn't have to be a bad thing, especially if you are a young or a new writer. However, you should be conscious of exactly how you are imitating him - word choice, sentence structure, motifs? - and think about why you're doing it. ~ Poppy Z. Brite
But he that dare not grasp the thorn should never crave the rose. ~ Anne Bronte
Writing is 1 percent inspiration, and 99 percent elimination. ~ Louise Brooks
As against having beautiful workshops, studies, etc., one writes best in a cellar on a rainy day. ~ Van Wyck Brooks
The lessons taught in great books are misleading. The commerce in life is rarely so simple and never so just. ~ Anita Brookner
A wise soul once declared that the ultimate power of the writer is that he has the choice of whom he wants to be co-opted by. ~ David Brooks

Most new writers think it's easy to write for children, but it's not. You have to get in a beginning, middle and end, tell a great story, write well, not be condescending--all in a few pages. ~ Andrea Brown
The best children's book writers are not people who have kids, but people who write from the child within themselves. ~ Andrea Brown
The process of writing, any form of creativity, is a power intensifying life. ~ Rita Mae Brown
Opportunity dances with those who are already on the dance floor. ~ H. Jackson Brown
Don't say you don't have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michaelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein. ~ H. Jackson Brown
You don't have to be great to get started, but you have to get started to be great. ~ Les Brown
Our interest's on the dangerous edge of things. The honest thief, the tender murderer, the superstitious atheist. ~ Robert Browning
Either a writer doesn't want to talk about his work, or he talks about it more than you want. ~ Anatole Broyard
Sex almost always disappoints me in novels. Everything can be said or done now, and that's what I often find: everything, a feeling of generality or dispersal. But in my experience, true sex is so particular, so peculiar to the person who yearns for it. Only he or she, and no one else, would desire so very much that very person under those circumstances. In fiction, I miss that sense of terrific specificity. ~ Anatole Broyard
One nice thing about putting the thing away for a couple of months before looking at it is that you start appreciate your own wit. Of course, this can be carried too far. But it's kind of cool when you crack up a piece of writing, and then realize you wrote it. I recommend this feeling. ~ Steven Brust

It requires more than mere genius to be an author. ~ Jean de la Bruyère
Language is more fashion than science, and matters of usage, spelling and pronunciation tend to wander around like hemlines. ~ Bill Bryson
English grammar is so complex and confusing for the one very simple reason that its rules and terminology are based on Latin -- a language with which it has precious little in common. In Latin, to take one example, it is not possible to split an infinitive. So in English, the early authorities decided, it should not be possible to split an infinitive either. But there is no reason why we shouldn't, any more than we should forsake instant coffee and air travel because they weren't available to the Romans. ~ Bill Bryson
For most of us the rules of English grammar are at best a dimly remembered thing. But even for those who make the rules, grammatical correctitude sometimes proves easier to urge than to achieve. Among the errors cited in this book are a number committed by some of the leading authorities of this century. If men such as Fowler and Bernstein and Quirk and Howard cannot always get their English right, is it reasonable to expect the rest of us to? ~ Bill Bryson
Those who sniff decay in every shift of sense or alteration of usage do the language no service. Too often for such people the notion of good English has less to do with expressing ideas clearly than with making words conform to some arbitrary pattern. ~ Bill Bryson
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

I don't wait for moods. You accomplish nothing if you do that. Your mind must know it has got to get down to work. ~ Pearl S Buck
In a mood of faith and hope my work goes on. A ream of fresh paper lies on my desk waiting for the next book. I am a writer and I take up my pen to write. ~ Pearl S Buck
He is able who thinks he is able. ~ Buddha
Literature is all, or mostly, about sex. ~ Anthony Burgess
If you are writing about baloney, don't try and make it Cornish hen, because that's the worst kind of baloney there is. Just make it darn good baloney. ~ Leo Burnett
Words, once they are printed, have a life of their own. ~ Carol Burnett
There are so many different kinds of writing and so many ways to work that the only rule is this: do what works. Almost everything has been tried and found to succeed for somebody. The methods, even the ideas of successful writers contradict each other in a most heartening way, and the only element I find common to all successful writers is persistence-an overwhelming determination to succeed. ~ Sophy Burnham
I would rather be a failure at something I loved doing than a success at something I hate to do.~ George Burns
Words are not as satisfactory as we should like them to be, but, like our neighbors, we have got to live with them and must make the best and not the worst of them. ~ Samuel Butler

Every word written is a victory against death. ~ Michel Butor
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
If you write one story, it may be bad; if you write a hundred, you have the odds in your favor.~ Edgar Rice Burroughs
The only living works are those which have drained much of the author's own life into them. ~ Samuel Butler
Books want to be born: I never make them. They come to me and insist on being written, and on being such and such. ~ Samuel Butler
When a man is in doubt about this or that in his writing, it will often guide him if he asks himself how it will tell a hundred years hence. ~ Samuel Butler
Writing is one of the few professions in which you can psychoanalyse yourself, get rid of hostilities and frustrations in public, and get paid for it ~ Octavia Butler
But I hate things all fiction... there should always be some foundation of fact for the most airy fabric -- and pure invention is but the talent of a liar. ~ Lord Byron
If I don't write to empty my mind, I go mad. ~ Lord Byron
But words are things, and a small drop of ink, falling like dew upon a thought, produces that which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think. ~ Lord Byron

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