#writing

You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children. ↗

— Madeleine L'Engle

#children #difficult #grown-ups #write #writers

After nourishment, shelter and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world. ↗

— Philip Pullman

#needs #stories #storytelling #writing #need

So the writer who breeds more words than he needs, is making a chore for the reader who reads. ↗

— Dr. Seuss

#on-writing #need

One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple. ↗

— Jack Kerouac

#simplicity #writing #words

Words can be like X-rays if you use them properly -- they’ll go through anything. You read and you’re pierced. ↗

— Aldous Huxley

#words #writing #words

There are books full of great writing that don't have very good stories. Read sometimes for the story... don't be like the book-snobs who won't do that. Read sometimes for the words--the language. Don't be like the play-it-safers who won't do that. But when you find a book that has both a good story and good words, treasure that book. ↗

— Stephen King

#on-writing #stories #storytelling #words

The trick is to teach yourself to read in small sips as well as long swallows. ↗

— Stephen King

#writing #teaching

As a child, I read because books–violent and not, blasphemous and not, terrifying and not–were the most loving and trustworthy things in my life. I read widely, and loved plenty of the classics so, yes, I recognized the domestic terrors faced by Louisa May Alcott’s March sisters. But I became the kid chased by werewolves, vampires, and evil clowns in Stephen King’s books. I read books about monsters and monstrous things, often written with monstrous language, because they taught me how to battle the real monsters in my life. And now I write books for teenagers because I vividly remember what it felt like to be a teen facing everyday and epic dangers. I don’t write to protect them. It’s far too late for that. I write to give them weapons–in the form of words and ideas-that will help them fight their monsters. I write in blood because I remember what it felt like to bleed. ↗

— Sherman Alexie

#teens #writing #young-adult-literature #life

President Bartlet: There's a delegation of cardiologists having their pictures taken in the Blue Room. You wouldn't think you could find a group of people more arrogant than the fifteen of us, but there they are, right upstairs in the Blue Room. ↗

— Aaron Sorkin

#president

There's an epigram tacked to my office bulletin board, pinched from a magazine -- "Wanting to meet an author because you like his work is like wanting to meet a duck because you like pâté. ↗

— Margaret Atwood

#disappointment #epigrams #fandom #on-writing #similes