#writing

One should use common words to say uncommon things ↗

— Arthur Schopenhauer

#naivete #simplicity #writing #simplicity

Being a writer is a very peculiar sort of a job: it's always you versus a blank sheet of paper (or a blank screen) and quite often the blank piece of paper wins. ↗

— Neil Gaiman

#being

Don't bend; don't water it down; don't try to make it logical; don't edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly. ↗

— Franz Kafka

#truth-telling #writing #logic

A poem begins with a lump in the throat; a homesickness or a lovesickness. It is a reaching-out toward expression; an effort to find fulfillment. A complete poem is one where an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words. ↗

— Robert Frost

#writing #effort

No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem. ↗

— Booker T. Washington

#field #learns #much #poem #prosper

As a writer, you should not judge, you should understand. ↗

— Ernest Hemingway

#writing-advice #understanding

I have eavesdropped with impunity on the lives of people who do not exist. I have peeped shamelessly into hearts and bathroom closets. I have leaned over shoulders to follow the movements of quills as they write love letters, wills and confessions. I have watched as lovers love, murderers murder and children play their make-believe. Prisons and brothels have opened their doors to me; galleons and camel trains have transported me across sea and sand; centuries and continents have fallen away at my bidding. I have spied upon the misdeeds of the mighty and witnessed the nobility of the meek. I have bent so low over sleepers in their beds that they might have felt my breath on their faces. I have seen their dreams. ↗

— Diane Setterfield

#dreams

Apparently, my hopes, dreams and aspirations were no match against my poor spelling, punctuation and grammar. ↗

— Red Red Rover

#dreams #editing #grammar #hopes #ideas

The purpose of a writer is to keep civilization from destroying itself. ↗

— Albert Camus

#writers #writing #civilization

We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down. ↗

— Kurt Vonnegut

#invention #quip #wings #writing #write