Quotes about Writing: R

Words are a lens to focus one's mind. ~ Ayn Rand
A reader has to be concerned only with the end result; unless he chooses to analyze it, he does not have to know by what means that result was achieved—but it is my job to know. ~ Ayn Rand
The best, most natural dialogue is usually written as if the writer is listening to dictation. You might get stuck on any particular point and have to question yourself; but normally, dialogue writes itself. ~ Ayn Rand
Even in dialogue, your own style rules your selection. Do not give yourself a blank check of this kind: ‘I’ll merely reproduce what I think a character like so-and-so would say.’ You have to reproduce it in the way your literary premises dictate. ~ Ayn Rand
[Editors] drive us nuts. We go from near-worshipful groveling when we submit to bitter cursing when they reject us. ~ Ken Rand
What no wife of a writer can ever understand is that a writer is working when he's staring out of the window. ~ Burton Rascoe

Truth maybe stranger than fiction, but fiction is truer. ~ Frederic Raphael
Really, in the end, the only thing that can make you a writer is the person that you are, the intensity of your feeling, the honesty of your vision, the unsentimental acknowledgment of the endless interest of the life around and within you. Virtually nobody can help you deliberately -- many people will help you unintentionally. ~ Santha Rama Rau
Truth is always duller than fiction. ~ Piers Paul Read
If you want to write you must have faith in yourself. Faith enough to believe that if a thing is true about you, it is likely true about many people. And if you can have faith in your integrity and your motives, then you can write about yourself without fear. ~ Real Live Preacher
This is the challenge of writing. You have to be very emotionally engaged in what you’re doing, or it comes out flat. You can’t fake your way through this. ~ Real Live Preacher
Writing is an occupation in which you have to keep proving your talent to those who have none. ~ Jules Renard
Writing is the only profession where no one considers you ridiculous if you earn no money. ~ Jules Renard
Writing energy is like anything else. The more you put in, the more you get out. ~ Richard Reeves

Writing is the best way to talk without being interrupted. ~ Jules Renard
The story I am writing exists, written in absolutely perfect fashion, some place, in the air. All I must do is find it, and copy it. ~ Jules Renard
I get a lot of letters from people. They say "I want to be a writer. What should I do?" I tell them to stop writing to me and to get on with it. ~ Ruth Rendell
All of a writer that matters is in the book or books. It is idiotic to be curious about the person. ~ Jean Rhys
When I'm writing, the darkness is always there. I go where the pain is. ~ Anne Rice
Language is power... Language can be used as a means of changing reality. ~ Adrienne Rich
If you caricature friends in your first novel they will be upset, but if you don't they will feel betrayed. ~ Mordecai Richler
Fundamentally, all writing is about the same thing; it's about dying, about the brief flicker of time we have here, and the frustration that it creates. ~ Mordecai Richler

Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depth of your heart; confess to yourself you would have to die if you were forbidden to write. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke
What is needed is, in the end, simply this: solitude, great inner solitude. Going into yourself and meeting no one for hours on end--that is what you must be able to attain. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke
Be anything you want to be, but don't be dull. ~ Frank Robinson
The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams. ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are. ~ Theodore Roosevelt
When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt
The only reason for being a professional writer is that you just can't help it. ~ Leo Rosten
Every writer is a narcissist. This does not mean that he is vain; it only means that he is hopelessly self-absorbed. ~ Leo Rosten

I often have to write a hundred pages or more before there's a paragraph that's alive. ~ Philip Roth
Fiction is the most joyous, beautiful, sophisticated, wonderful thing in the world. ~ Arundhati Roy
Books choose their authors; the act of creation is not entirely a rational and conscious one. ~ Salman Rushdie
Say all you have to say in the fewest possible words, or your reader will be sure to skip them; and in the plainest possible words or he will certainly misunderstand them. ~ John Ruskin
Nature fits all her children with something to do; He who would write and can't write, can surely review. ~ James Russell Lowell