Quotes about Writing: N

• The pages are still blank, but there is a miraculous feeling of the words being there, written in invisible ink and clamouring to become visible. ~ Vladimir Nabakov
  
• There is the first satisfaction of arranging it on a bit of paper; after many, many false tries, false moves, finally you have the sentence you recognize as the one you are looking for. ~ Vladimir Nabokov
  
• I have rewritten - often several times - every word I have ever published. My pencils outlast their erasers. ~ Vladimir Nabokov
  
• Only ambitious nonentities and hearty mediocrities exhibit their rough drafts. It's like passing around samples of sputum. ~ Vladimir Nabokov
  
• Don't sell yourself short; dare to dream. You might sell to a top market before you ever sell to a non-paying market - you won't know unless you try. In the same way, it's good to be cooperative, but don't be too humble either. ~ Rheal Nadeau
  
• Research is formalized curiosity. It is poking and prying with a purpose. ~ Zora Neale Hurston

• The author must keep his mouth shut when his work starts to speak. ~ Friederich Nietzsche
  
• Good writers have two things in common: They prefer being understood to being admired, and they do not write for the overcritical and too shrewd reader. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche
  
• The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say. ~ Anaïs Nin
  
• We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospection. ~ Anais Nin
  
• If you do not breathe through writing, if you do not cry out in writing, or sing in writing, then don't write, because our culture has no use for it. ~Anais Nin
  
• Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage. ~ Anais Nin

• The reader has certain rights. He bought your story. Think of this as an implicit contract. He's entitled to be entertained, instructed, amused; maybe all three. If he quits in the middle, or puts the book down feeling his time has been wasted, you're in violation. ~ Larry Niven
  
• It is a cardinal sin to bore the reader. ~ Larry Niven
  
• You learn by writing short stories. Keep writing short stories. The money's in novels, but writing short stories keeps your writing lean and pointed. ~ Larry Niven
  
• For all my longer works, for example novels, I write chapter outlines so I can have the pleasure of departing from them later on. ~ Garth Nix
  
• I write what I would like to read. ~ Kathleen Norris
  
• I write to tell stories. I believe that there a some professions in the world that will last forever: doctor or a nurse, teacher, builder and a storyteller. I write also to become myself, more so day by day. Writing is a way to shape out visible and invisible, in myself as well as in the world. ~ Eppu Nuotio

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