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Quotes on Writing: E

  • The defining function of the artist is to cherish consciousness. ~ Max Eastman

  • If you would be a writer, first be a reader. Only through the assimilation of ideas, thoughts and philosophies can one begin to focus his own ideas, thoughts and philosophies. ~ Allan W. Eckert

  • Start early and work hard. A writer's apprenticeship usually involves writing a million words (which are then discarded) before he's almost ready to begin. That takes a while. ~ David Eddings

  • Failure is just another way to learn how to do something right. ~ Marian Wright Edelman

  • If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not to people or things. ~ Albert Einstein

  • In my experience, the best creative work is never done when one is unhappy. ~ Albert Einstein

  • When I examine myself and my methods of thought I come to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing knowledge. ~ Albert Einstein

  • Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. ~ Albert Einstein

  • Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world. ~ Albert Einstein

  • Curiosity has its own reason for existence. The important thing is not to stop questioning. ~ Albert Einstein

  • If you start with a bang, you won't end with a whimper. ~ T. S. Eliot

  • Most editors are failed writers - but so are most writers. ~ T.S. Eliot

  • It’s not wise to violate the rules until you know how to observe them. ~ T. S. Eliot

  • There is no method except to be very intelligent. ~ T. S. Eliot

  • No one put a gun to your head and ordered you to become a writer. One writes out of his own choice and must be prepared to take the rough spots along the road with a certain equanimity, though allowed some grinding of the teeth. ~ Stanley Ellin

  • It is never too late to be what you might have been. ~ George Elliot

  • Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go. ~ T. S. Eliot

  • I would never write about anyone who is not at the end of his rope. ~ Stanley Elkin

  • People on the outside think there's something magical about writing, that you go up in the attic at midnight and cast the bones and come down in the morning with a story, but it isn't like that. You sit in back of the typewriter and you work, and that's all there is to it. ~ Harlan Ellison

  • Thank your readers and the critics who praise you, and then ignore them. Write for the most intelligent, wittiest, wisest audience in the universe: Write to please yourself. ~ Harlan Ellison

  • Writing is the hardest work in the world. I have been a bricklayer and a truck driver, and I tell you – as if you haven't been told a million times already – that writing is harder. Lonelier. And nobler and more enriching. ~ Harlan Ellison

  • It is not enough merely to love literature, if one wishes to spend one's life as a writer. It is a dangerous undertaking on the most primitive level. For, it seems to me, the act of writing with serious intent involves enormous personal risk. It entails the ongoing courage for self-discovery. It means one will walk forever on the tightrope, with each new step presenting the possibility of learning a truth about oneself that is too terrible to bear. ~ Harlan Ellison

  • I refuse to write the same story twice. I keep experimenting. I keep learning how to work. I’ve been at it pretty much 50 years, and I’m now beginning to learn how to do the job well. ~ Harlan Ellison

  • People do not deserve to have good writings; they are so pleased with bad. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

  • Talent alone cannot make a writer. There must be a man behind the book. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

  • The writer is an explorer. Every step is an advance into new land. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

  • Let the reader find that he cannot afford to omit any line of your writing because you you have omitted every word that he can spare. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

  • In good writing, words become one with things. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

  • Hitch your wagon to a star. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

  • The language of the street is always strong. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

  • In art the hand can never execute anything higher than the heart can inspire. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

  • The virtue of books is to be readable. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

  • The good writer seems to be writing about himself, but has his eye always on that thread of the Universe which runs through himself and all things. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

  • You have to write whichever book it is that wants to be written. And then, if it's going to be too difficult for grown-ups, you write it for children. ~ Madeleine L'Engle

  • I believe that good questions are more important than answers, and the best children's books ask questions, and make the readers ask questions. And every new question is going to disturb someone's universe. ~ Madeleine L'Engle

  • If you wish to be a writer; write! ~ Epictetus (50-120) Greek philosopher.

  • The desire to write grows with writing. ~ Erasmus

  • Nothing, not love, not greed, not passion or hatred, is stronger than a writer's need to change another writer's copy. ~ Arthur Evans

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