All Quotes By Tag: Writing

“A good writer knew when not to write. Anybody could type. Not that I was a good typist; also I couldn’t spell and I didn’t know grammar. But I knew when not to write. It was like fucking. You had to rest the godhead now and then.”

“Art is the overflow of emotion into action.”

“Any magazine-cover hack can splash paint around wildly and call it a nightmare, or a witches sabbath or a portrait of the devil; but only a great painter can make such a thing really scare or ring true. That’s because only a real artist knows the anatomy of the terrible, or the physiology of fear.”

“Were most of your stars out? Were you busy writing your heart out?”

“The difference between real life and a story is that life has significance, while a story must have meaning.The former is not always apparent, while the latter always has to be, before the end.”

“Good or bad, words have an impact on each of us. As a writer, I can only hope that the effects my words have on others are more often good than bad.”

“The book was blunt and had an honesty about it, whereas the movie was just a beautiful lie.”

“I want to be able to do anything with words: handle slashing, flaming descriptions like Wells, and use the paradox with the clarity of Samuel Butler, the breadth of Bernard Shaw and the wit of Oscar Wilde, I want to do the wide sultry heavens of Conrad, the rolled-gold sundowns and crazy-quilt skies of Hitchens and Kipling as well as the pastel dawns and twilights of Chesterton. All that is by way of example. As a matter of fact I am a professed literary thief, hot after the best methods of every writer in my generation.”

“drill one hole after another into [language] until that which lurks behind, be it something or nothing, starts seeping through – I cannot imagine a higher goal for today’s writer.”

“If Makar Denisych was just a clerk or a junior manager, then no one would have dared talk to him in such a condescending, casual tone, but he is a ‘writer’, and a talentless mediocrity! People like Mr Bubentsov do not understand anything about art and are not very interested in it, but whenever they happen to come across talentless mediocrities they are pitiless and implacable, They are ready to forgive anyone, but not Makar, that eccentric loser with manuscripts lying in his trunk. The gardener damaged the old rubber plant, and ruined lots of expensive plants, and the general does nothing and goes on spending money like water; Mr Bubentsov only got down to work once a month when he was a magistrate, then stammered, muddled up the laws, and spoke a lot of rubbish, but all this is forgiven and not noticed; but there is no way that anyone can pass by the talentless Makar, who writes passable poetry and stories, without saying something offensive. No one cares that the general’s sister-in-law slaps the maids’ cheeks, and swears like a trooper when she is playing cards, that the priest’s wife never pays up when she loses, and the landowner Flyugin stole a a dog from the landower Sivobrazov, but the fact that Our Province returned a bad story to Makar recently is know to the whole district and has provoked mockery, long conversations and indignation, while Makar Denisych is already being referred to as old Makarka. If someone does not write the way required, they never try to explain what is wrong, but just say: ‘That bastard has gone and written another load of rubbish!”

“The writer’s only responsibility is to his art. He will be completely ruthless if he is a good one… If a writer has to rob his mother, he will not hesitate; the Ode on a Grecian Urn is worth any number of old ladies.”

“He honestly expected her to believe that she could make a bad offering and her ancestors wouldn’t mind.”

“Finished crap can be edited. Unfinished greatness languishes forever. The only bad writing is the thing you didn’t write!”

“I wanted to write the most beautiful poem but that is impossible; the world has written its own.”

“Write a little. Read a little. Dick around on the internet. Post something to Pinterest or Facebook. Text a friend. Write some more. Curse it because it’s shit. Write some more. Repeat.”