Quotes about Writing: P

Only self-educated is educated. Others are merely taught. ~ Erno Paasilinna
One has to live a life that creates a writer. ~ Erno Paasilinna
No tale tells all. ~ Alexei Panshin
I can’t write five words but that I change seven. ~ Dorothy Parker
Even those who write against fame wish for the fame of having written well, and those who read their works desire the fame of having read them. ~ Plaise Pascal
Learn to write by writing ~ Ann Patchett
As I look back on what I have written, I can see that the very persons who have taken away my time are those who have given me something to say. ~ Katherine Paterson
Our words should be purrs instead of hisses. ~ Katherine Paterson

Thus, in a real sense, I am constantly writing autobiography, but I have to turn it into fiction in order to give it credibility. ~ Katherine Paterson
The last thing one settles in writing a book is what one should put in first. ~ Blaise Pascal
I have made this [letter] longer, because I have not had the time to make it shorter. ~ Blaise Pascal
Everything that is written merely to please the author is worthless. ~ Blaise Pascal
If there is a special Hell for writers it would be in the forced contemplation of their own works. ~ John Dos Passos
Writing is rewriting. A writer must learn to deepen characters, trim writing, intensify scenes. To fall in love with the first draft to the point where one cannot change it is to greatly enhance the prospects of never publishing. ~ Richard North Patterson
Write what you care about and understand. Writers should never try to outguess the marketplace in search of a salable idea; the simple truth is that all good books will eventually find a publisher if the writer tries hard enough, and a central secret to writing a good book is to write on that people like you will enjoy. ~ Richard North Patterson

The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas. ~ Linus Pauling
It's always too early to quit. ~ Norman Vincent Peale
We don't write what we know. We write what we wonder about. ~ Richard Peck
One extends one's limits only by exceeding them. ~ M. Scott Peck
Writing is communication, not self-expression. Nobody in this world wants to read your diary except your mother. ~ Richard Peck
A word is not the same with one writer as with another. One tears it from his guts. The other pulls it out of his overcoat pocket. ~ Peguy
A good title should be like a good metaphor. It should intrigue without being too baffling or too obvious. ~ Walker Percy
If words are to enter men's minds and bear fruit, they must be the right words shaped cunningly to pass men's defenses and explode silently and effectually within their minds. ~ J. B. Phillips
When characters are really alive, before their author, the latter does nothing but follow them in their action. ~ Luigi Pirandello

And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt. ~ Sylvia Plath
The act of putting pen to paper encourages pause for thought, this in turn makes us think more deeply about life, which helps us regain our equilibrium. ~ Norbet Platt
The harder you work, the luckier you get. ~ Gary Player.
Through joy and through sorrow, I wrote. Through hunger and through thirst, I wrote. Through good report and through ill report, I wrote. Through sunshine and through moonshine, I wrote. What I wrote it is unnecessary to say. ~ Edgar Allen Poe
Grammar is the analysis of language. ~ Edgar Allan Poe
We writers have this saying 'Kill your darlings' ... but I suppose you family men don't agree with it. ~ Mike Pohjola
You write to communicate to the hearts and minds of others what's burning inside you. And we edit to let the fire show through the smoke. ~ Arthur Polotnik
No writing is good that does not tend to better mankind in some way or other. ~ Alexander Pope

Writing, in any sense that matters, cannot be taught. It can only be learned by each separate one of us in his own way, by the use of his own powers of imagination and perception, the ability to learn the lessons he has set for himself. ~ Katherine Anne Porter
Most people won't realise that writing is a craft. You have to take your apprenticeship in it like anything else. ~ Katherine Ann Porter
If I didn't know the ending of a story, I wouldn't begin. I always write my last line, my last paragraph, my last page first. ~ Katherine Anne Porter
Great literature is simply language charged with meaning to the utmost possible degree. ~ Ezra Pound
Make it new. ~ Ezra Pound
Good writers are those who keep the language efficient. That is to say, keep it accurate, keep it clear. ~ Ezra Pound
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

I can speak of my own criterion for judging whether or not a book is good or bad. I ask of it a single question, From how deep and true an impulse did it spring? Was it written merely to shock? Only to make money? Or was it written to create something more perfect and more lasting than the life experience from which it came? ~ Lawrence Clark Powell
Write to be understood, speak to be heard, read to grow... ~ Lawrence Clark Powell
[A writer] must try to think clearly, to feel deeply, to write honestly. If he is fortunate he will make a living, but his work will never be anymore essentially clear and deep and honest than he himself is, and he will be judged finally not for how many copies his books have sold, but for what they have done to enrich the lives of their readers, now and in time to come. ~ Lawrence Clark Powell
This is the gift all writers seek--to write language that incandesces yet does not melt. ~ Lawrence Clark Powell
There's no such thing as writer's block. That was invented by people in California who couldn't write. ~ Terry Pratchett
The sound of a word is at least as important as the meaning. ~ Jack Prelutsky
Write as often as possible, not with the idea at once of getting into print, but as if you were learning an instrument. ~ J B Priestley
Perhaps it would be better not to be a writer, but if you must, then write. If all feels hopeless, if that famous 'inspiration' will not come, write. If you are a genius, you'll make your own rules, but if not - and the odds are against it - go to your desk no matter what your mood, face the icy challenge of the paper - write. ~ J. B. Priestly
Short stories can be rather stark and bare unless you put in the right details. Details make stories human, and the more human a story can be, the better. ~ V. S. Pritchett
The makers of the short story have rarely been good novelists. ~ V. S. Pritchett
Short stories can be rather stark and bare unless you put in the right details. Details make stories human, and the more human a story can be, the better. ~ V. S. Pritchett

Quotes about Writing: Q

Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate a piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey it - and delete it before sending your manuscript to the press. ~ Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch
Most beginning writers (and I was the same) are like chefs trying to cook great dishes that they've never tasted themselves. How can you make a great (or even an adequate) bouillabaisse if you've never had any? If you don't really understand why people read mysteries (or romances or literary novels or thrillers or whatever), then there's no way in the world you're going to write one that anyone wants to publish. (This is the meaning of the well-known expression "Write what you know.") ~ Daniel Quinn
When you send off a short story, it sits on the editor's desk in the same pile with stories by the most famous and honored names in present-day writing--and it's not going to be accepted unless it's as good as theirs. (And it'll probably have to be better.) ~ Daniel Quinn
Prune what is turgid, elevate what is commonplace, arrange what is disorderly, introduce rhythm where the language is harsh, modify where it is too absolute. ~ Marcus Fabius Quintilianus, circa 65 A.D.
Write quickly and you will never write well. Write well, and you will soon write quickly. ~ Marcus Fabius Quintilianus, 65 A.D.

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