#writing

In my craft or sullen art Exercised in the still night When only the moon rages And the lovers lie abed With all their griefs in their arms, I labour by singing light Not for ambition or bread Or the strut and trade of charms On the ivory stages But for the common wages Of their most secret heart. Not for the proud man apart From the raging moon I write On these spindrift pages Nor for the towering dead With their nightingales and psalms But for the lovers, their arms Round the griefs of the ages, Who pay no praise or wages Nor heed my craft or art. ↗

— Dylan Thomas

#age

The ideal art, the noblest of art: working with the complexities of life, refusing to simplify, to "overcome" doubt. ↗

— Joyce Carol Oates

#art #complexity #writing #art

I realize that some of you may have come in hopes of hearing tips on how to become a professional writer. I say to you, "If you really want to hurt your parents, and you don't have the nerve to be a homosexual, the least you can do is go into the arts. But do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites, standing for absolutely nothing. All they do is show you've been to college. ↗

— Kurt Vonnegut

#education #hurt #writers-on-writing #art

Writing is a dying form. One reads of this every day. ↗

— Lemony Snicket

#writing #humor

He’s an indulgent sort of man…… With a quick lip and a fierce tongue, the sort of tongue that draws you in with charm and words of praise, awkward silences and desperate worships. ↗

— Coco J. Ginger

#charm #fierce-tongue #friendship-and-love #jamie-weise #love

Just tell the truth, and they'll accuse you of writing black humor. ↗

— Charles Willeford

#humor

The very first thing I tell my new students on the first day of a workshop is that good writing is about telling the truth. We are a species that needs and wants to understand who we are. Sheep lice do not seem to share this longing, which is one reason they write so very little. But we do. We have so much we want to say and figure out. ↗

— Anne Lamott

#writing #humor

If you hear voices, you’re a lunatic. If you write down what they say, you’re an author. ↗

— Dani Harper

#humor #novelist #writing #humor

Any fool can write a book and most of them are doing it; but it takes brains to build a house. ↗

— Charles F. Lummis

#humor #writing #humor

I am sifting my memories, the way men pan the dirt under a barroom floor for the bits of gold dust that fall between the cracks. It's small mining-- small mining. You're too young a man to be panning memories, Adam. You should be getting yourself some new ones, so that the mining will be richer when you come to age. ↗

— John Steinbeck

#on-writing #age