A writer submitting a careless, error-inflicted manuscript is like a police officer robbing a bank. It just shouldn't happen. It should never be tolerated. It's a perversion of Nature.
-- Richard Laymon
Posted by Troy (Member # 2640) on :
At a cocktail party, a famous writer (possibly George Bernard Shaw) was told by a famous surgeon, "When I retire, I plan to write a novel." Said the author, "When I retire, I plan to operate on people."
(from the same article as the first quote).
Posted by Spaceman (Member # 9240) on :
Metaphors be with you.
David Gerrold
Posted by Avatar300 (Member # 1655) on :
"Writers, alas, have to be fools in public, while the rest of the human race can cover its tracks." - Erica Jong
"I never write exercises, but sometimes I write poems which fail and call them exercises." -Robert Frost
"English doesn't borrow from other languages. English follows other languages down dark alleys, knocks them over, and goes through their pockets for loose grammar." -Unknown
"A poet looks at the world as a man looks at a woman." -Wallace Stevens
"To be a poet is a condition rather than a profession." - Robert Graves
"The lunatic, the lover, and the poet / Are of imagination all compact." -William Shakespeare
If you do not hear music in your words, you have put too much though into your writing and not enough heart. - Terry Brooks
Posted by Elan (Member # 2442) on :
“The first draft of anything is always shit.” --Ernest Hemmingway
Posted by Elan (Member # 2442) on :
"There's nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein." --Red Smith
"It is perfectly okay to write garbage – as long as you edit brilliantly." --C. J. Cherryh
"Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamppost what it feels about dogs." --John Osborne
"I have rewritten--often several times--every word I have ever published. My pencils outlast their erasers." --Vladmir Nabokov
(I love this thread!)
Posted by hoptoad (Member # 2145) on :
What is the difference between a writer and the width of postage stamp?
[This message has been edited by hoptoad (edited July 10, 2005).]
Posted by hoptoad (Member # 2145) on :
[This message has been edited by hoptoad (edited July 10, 2005).]
Posted by Isaiah13 (Member # 2283) on :
"I sit at a desk. I face the wall. If you sit facing the wall, the only way out is through the sentences." - E. L. Doctorow
"Any man who will look into his heart and honestly write what he sees there will find plenty of readers." Edgar W. House.
"Reading and weeping opens the door to one's heart, but writing and weeping opens the window to one's soul." - M.K. Simmons
"Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work." - Stephen King
Posted by MaryRobinette (Member # 1680) on :
The difference between the right word and almost the right word is like the difference between lightening and a lightening bug. --Mark Twain
Posted by Jeraliey (Member # 2147) on :
"all power to the imagination" -A weather-worn piece of paper plastered to an electrical box on Gibbs Street
Posted by dpatridge (Member # 2208) on :
Cool... I don't have any of my own, sorry.
Posted by kkmmaacc (Member # 2643) on :
If you ever write a paragraph that seems to you to sing, to be the best thing you've ever written, to be full of wonder and poetry and greatness -- cross it out, it stinks!
-Fletcher Pratt
Posted by mikemunsil (Member # 2109) on :
Writing is easy. All you do is stare at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead.
Gene Fowler
Posted by hoptoad (Member # 2145) on :
Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them. Henry David Thoreau . . . .
[This message has been edited by hoptoad (edited July 11, 2005).]
Posted by Silverfoot (Member # 2608) on :
"A Professional writer is an amateur who didn't quit." Richard Bach
Posted by hopekeeper (Member # 2701) on :
Life IS a story. Write it, don't read it. -me Posted by dpatridge (Member # 2208) on :
"The end of the beginning, or the beginning of the end? Alas, m'friends, this tale has no end..."
-me
Posted by benskia (Member # 2422) on :
Troy's are from the Horror Writers association writers tips, I believe.
Posted by TheoPhileo (Member # 1914) on :
"The greater the artist, the greater the doubt. Perfect confidence is granted to the less talented as a consolation prize." - Robert Hughes
Posted by Troy (Member # 2640) on :
Well, yes they are. I'm a Richard Laymon fan so I thought I'd read the article and see what he had to say about writing.
