Quotes about Writing C

I think you must remember that a writer is a simple-minded person to begin with and go on that basis. He's not a great mind, he's not a great thinker, he's not a great philosopher, he's a story-teller. ~ Erskine Caldwell
The words! I collected them in all shapes and sizes and hung them like bangles in my mind. ~ Hortense Calisher
There is only one trait that makes the writer. He is always watching. ~ Morley Callaghan
There is no mistaking the dismay on the face of a writer who has just heard that his brain child is a deformed idiot. ~ L. Sprague de Camp
The reason 99% of all stories written are not bought by editors is very simple. Editors never buy manuscripts that are left on the closet shelf at home. ~ John W. Campbell
If you follow your bliss you will find a path laid out before you that has been waiting for you all along and you will begin to live the life you ought to be living. ~ Joseph Campbell
Those who write clearly have readers. Those who write obscurely have commentators. ~Albert Camus
The purpose of a writer is to keep civilization from destroying itself. ~ Albert Camus
Words fascinate me. They always have. For me, browsing in a dictionary is like being turned loose in a bank. ~ Eddie Cantor

Good writing is rewriting. ~ Truman Capote
I believe more in the scissors than I do in the pencil. ~ Truman Capote
To me the greatest pleasure of writing is not what it's about, but the music the words make. ~ Truman Capote
I think the only person a writer has an obligation to is himself. If what I write doesn't fulfill something in me, if I don't honestly feel it's the best I can do, then I'm miserable. ~ Truman Capote
Finishing a book is just like you took a child out in the back yard and shot it. ~ Truman Capote
Writing is the art of second thought. ~ Rene J. Cappon
It's always a bit of a struggle to get the words right, whether we're a Hemingway or a few fathoms below his level. ~ Rene J. Cappon
Words are the most powerful thing in the universe... Words are containers. They contain faith, or fear, and they produce after their kind. ~ Charles Capps
Metaphors have a way of holding the most truth in the least space. ~ Orson Scott Card
Everybody walks past a thousand story ideas every day. The good writers are the ones who see five or six of them. Most people don't see any. ~ Orson Scott Card

Short stories are designed to deliver their impact in as few pages as possible. A tremendous amount is left out, and a good short story writer learns to include only the most essential information. ~ Orson Scott Card
Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no help at all. ~ Dale Carnegie
The cat sat on the mat is not a story. The cat sat on the other cat's mat is a story. ~ John le Carre
Practise, practise, practise writing. Writing is a craft that requires both talent and acquired skills. You learn by doing, by making mistakes and then seeing where you went wrong. ~ Jeffrey A. Carver
Write from the soul, not from some notion what you think the marketplace wants. The market is fickle; the soul is eternal. ~ Jeffrey A. Carver
A novel should be an experience and convey an emotional truth rather than arguments. ~ Joyce Cary
Writing is a tool of transformation and can shine the light on the inside, dispelling darkness, taking us through external layers, bringing us closer to our souls. ~ Hillary Carlip
If a book comes from the heart, it will continue to reach other hearts. ~ Thomas Carlyle
Writing is like walking in a deserted street. Out of the dust in the street you make a mud pie. ~ John le Carre

I don't want to take up literature in a money-making spirit, or be very anxious about making large profits, but selling it at a loss is another thing altogether, and an amusement I cannot well afford. ~ Lewis Carroll
I think a little menace is fine to have in a story. For one thing, it's good for the circulation. ~ Raymond Carver
It only takes one person to change your life � you. ~ Ruth Casey
Most of the basic material a writer works with is acquired before the age of fifteen. ~ Willa Cather
Writing ought either to be the manufacture of stories for which there is a market demand -- a business as safe and commendable as making soap or breakfast foods -- or it should be an art, which is always a search for something for which there is no market demand, something new and untried, where the values are intrinsic and have nothing to do with standardized values. ~ Willa Cather
The pen is the tongue of the mind. ~ Miguel de Cervantes
The faster I write the better my output. If I'm going slow, I'm in trouble. It means I'm pushing the words instead of being pulled by them. ~ Raymond Chandler
Love interest nearly always weakens a mystery because it introduces a type of suspense that is antagonistic to the detective's struggle to solve a problem. ~ Raymond Chandler
Technique alone is never enough. You have to have passion. Technique alone is just an embroidered potholder. ~ Raymond Chandler
When in doubt, have a man come through the door with a gun in his hand. ~ Raymond Chandler

I have made three rules of writing for myself that are absolutes: Never take advice. Never show or discuss work in progress. Never answer a critic. ~ Raymond Chandler
At least half the mystery novels published violate the law that the solution, once revealed, must seem to be inevitable. ~ Raymond Chandler
An original writer is not one who imitates nobody, but one whom nobody can imitate. ~ Chateaubriand
For me, a page of good prose is where one hears the rain [and] the noise of battle. ~ John Cheever
Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass. ~ Anton Chekhov
If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired. Otherwise don't put it there. ~ Anton Chekhov
When men ask me how I know so much about men, they get a simple answer: everything I know about men, I learned from me. ~ Anton Chekhov
My own experience is that once a story has been written, one has to cross out the beginning and the end. It is there that we authors do most of our lying. ~ Anton Chekhov
It is perfectly okay to write garbage � as long as you edit brilliantly. ~ C. J. Cherryh
Next to doing things that deserve to be written, nothing gets a man more credit, or gives him more pleasure than to write things that deserve to be read. ~ Lord Chesterfield

I owe my success to having listened respectfully to the very best advice, and then going away and doing the exact opposite. ~ G. K. Chesterton
You could compile the worst book in the world entirely out of selected passages from the best writers in the world. ~ G.K. Chesterton
A good novel tells us the truth about its hero, but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author. ~ G. K. Chesterton
Literature is a luxury; fiction is a necessity. ~ G K Chesterton
Many people hear voices when no-one is there. Some of them are called mad and are shut up on rooms where they stare at the walls all day. Others are called writers and they do pretty much the same thing. ~ Meg Chittenden
The best time for planning a book is while you're doing the dishes. ~ Agatha Christie
I've always believed in writing without a collaborator, because when two people are writing the same book, each believes he gets all the worries and only half the royalties. ~ Agatha Christie
Broadly speaking, short words are best, and the old words, when short, are the best of all. ~ Winston Churchill
Have something to say, and say it as clearly as you can. That is the only secret of style. ~ Winston Churchill

Writing a book is a adventure. To begin with it is a toy and amusement. Then it becomes a mistress, then it becomes a master, then it becomes a tyrant. The last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster and fling him out to the public. ~ Winston Churchill
Grammar is to a writer what anatomy is to a sculptor, or the scales to a musician. You may loathe it, it may bore you, but nothing will replace it, and once mastered it will support you like a rock. ~ B. J. Chute
I firmly believe every book was meant to be written. ~ Marchette Chute
General rules have been legislated into being by past masters. ~ John Ciardi
I always tell people that I became a writer not because I went to school but because my mother took me to the library. I wanted to become a writer so I could see my name in the card catalog. ~ Sandra Cisneros
The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense. ~ Tom Clancy
Success is a finished book, a stack of pages each of which is filled with words. If you reach that point, you have won a victory over yourself no less impressive than sailing single-handed around the world. ~ Tom Clancy
I don't pretend we have all the answers. But the questions are certainly worth thinking about. ~ Arthur C. Clarke

There is a special sadness in achievement, in the knowledge that a long-desired goal has been attained at last, and that life must now be shaped toward new ends. ~ Arthur C. Clarke
The good writer, the great writer, has what I have called the three S's: the power to see, to sense, and to say. That is, he is perceptive, he is feeling, and he has the power to express in language what he observes and reacts to. ~ Lawrence Clark Powell
Write to be understood, speak to be heard, read to grow. ~ Lawrence Clark Powell
If writers were good businessmen, they'd have too much sense to be writers. ~ Irvin S. Cobb
The spirit of creation is the spirit of contradiction. It is the breakthrough of appearances toward an unknown reality. ~ Joan Cocteau
It is not a bad idea to get in the habit of writing down one's thoughts. It saves one having to bother anyone else with them. ~ Isabel Colegate
Every great and original writer, in proportion as he is great or original, must himself create the taste by which he is to be relished. ~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Put down everything that comes into your head and then you're a writer. But an author is one who can judge his own stuff's worth, without pity, and destroy most of it. ~ Colette

Many books require no thought from those who read them, and for a very simple reason; they made no such demand upon those who wrote them. ~ Charles Caleb Colton
To write what is worth publishing, to find honest people to publish it, and get sensible people to read it, are the three great difficulties in being an author. ~ Charles Caleb Colton
As regards plot I find real life no help at all. Real life seems to have no plots. And as I think a plot desirable and almost necessary, I have this extra grudge against life. ~ Ivy Compton-Burnett
An artist cannot fail; it is a success to be one. ~ Charles Horton Cooley
One should never criticize his own work except in a fresh and hopeful mood. The self-criticism of a tired mind is suicide. ~ Charles Horton Cooley
My task which I am trying to achieve is by the power of the written word, to make you hear, to make you feel--it is, before all, to make you see. That--and no more, and it is everything. ~ Joseph Conrad
Words, as is well known, are the great foes of reality. ~ Joseph Conrad
Don�t have your characters talk in long, perfect, complete, grammatical sentences. ~ Barnaby Conrad

Nothing in the world can take the place of perseverance. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. ~ Calvin Coolidge
I'm very proud of my flops, as much as of my successes. ~ Francis Ford Coppola
The beautiful part of writing is that you don't have to get it right the first time, unlike, say, a brain surgeon. ~ Robert Cormier
I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody. ~ Bill Cosby
Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail. ~ Confucius
Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self. ~ Cyril Connolly
Literature is the art of writing something that will be read twice. ~ Cyril Connolly
No one is asking, let alone demanding, that you write. The world is not waiting with bated breath for your article or book. Whether or not you get a single word on paper, the sun will rise, the earth will spin, the universe will expand. Writing is forever and always a choice -- your choice. ~ Beth Mende Conny

My task...is, by the power of the written word to make you hear, to make you feel - it is, before all, to make you see. That - and no more - and it is everything. ~ Joseph Conrad
Only in men's imagination does every truth find an effective and undeniable existence. Imagination, not invention, is the supreme master of art as of life. ~ Joseph Conrad-
A writer without interest or sympathy for the foibles of his fellow man is not conceivable as a writer. ~ Joseph Conrad
Reading is the most rewarding form of exile and the most necessary discipline for novelists who burn with the ambition to get better. ~ Pat Conroy
Wit ought to be a glorious treat, like caviar; never spread it about like marmalade. ~ Noel Coward
What I adore is supreme professionalism. I'm bored by writers who can write only when it's raining. ~ Noel Coward
One must be drenched in words, literally soaked in them, to have the right ones form themselves into the proper pattern at the right moment. ~ Hart Crane
Books aren't written, they're rewritten. Including your own. It is one of the hardest things to accept, especially after the seventh rewrite hasn't quite done it. ~ Michael Crichton
Most writers can write books faster than publishers can write checks. ~ Richard Curtis

Return from Quotes about writing C to Writing Quotes
Return from Quotes about writing C to Home