Arts, Media & Entertainment: Writing Quotes

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"One way an author dies a little each day is when his books go out of print"

William Goldman, Novelist

"A Shakespeare could have arisen only on English soil. In the same way, your great dramatists and poets express the nature and essence of the Norwegian people, but they also express that which is universally valid for all mankind"

Gustav Stresemann, Politician

"I was interested in what was really going on in Salem at that time, and I resolved to investigate this seemingly unorthodox treatment of the people and the period"

Carlisle Floyd, Composer

"Being a screenwriter is not enough for a full creative life"

William Goldman, Novelist

"There must be possible a fiction which, leaving sociology and case histories to the scientists, can arrive at the truth about the human condition, here and now, with all the bright magic of the fairy tale"

Ralph Ellison, Author

"Good fiction is made of that which is real, and reality is difficult to come by"

Ralph Ellison, Author

"By and large, the critics and readers gave me an affirmed sense of my identity as a writer. You might know this within yourself, but to have it affirmed by others is of utmost importance. Writing is, after all, a form of communication"

Ralph Ellison, Author

"Some people act as though art that is for a mass audience is not good art, and I think this has been a very negative thing. I know that I have wanted very much to write books that are accessible to the widest audience possible"

Bell Hooks, Critic

"Yes, the world is now flat for publishing as well"

Thomas Friedman, Journalist

"Sit down and put down everything that comes into your head and then you're a writer. But an author is one who can judge his own stuff's worth, without pity, and destroy most of it"

Sidonie Gabrielle Colette, Novelist

"Early on, it's good to develop the ability to write. Learning to write is a useful exercise, even if what you're writing about is not that relevant"

Walter Gilbert, Scientist

"There is no substitute for face-to-face reporting and research"

Thomas Friedman, Journalist

"Anyway, in my writing I've always been interested in finding places to stand, and I've found it very useful to have a direct experience of what I'm writing about"

Michael Pollan, Educator

"Yes, I very much like to have a personal stake in what I'm writing about"

Michael Pollan, Educator

"The Times has much less power than you think. I believe we attribute power to the media generally that it simply doesn't have. It's very convenient to blame the media, the same way we blame television for everything that's going wrong in society"

Michael Pollan, Educator

"Poor is the power of the lead that becomes bullets compared to the power of the hot metal that becomes types"

Georg Brandes, Critic

"The Congressional leaders set the agenda for journalism; it's not the other way around"

Michael Pollan, Educator

"My writing is remarkably non-confessional; you actually learn very little about me"

Michael Pollan, Educator

"Dante can be understood only within the context of Italian thought, and Faust would be unthinkable if divorced from its German background; but both are part of our common cultural heritage"

Gustav Stresemann, Politician

"Herman Melville was as separated from a civilized literature as the lost Atlantis was said to have been from the great peoples of the earth"

Edward Dahlberg, Novelist

"Writing is conscience, scruple, and the farming of our ancestors"

Edward Dahlberg, Novelist

"It's necessary to track characters all the way through an opera. If you're dealing with more than one or two characters, it's very easy to forget that the others have lives of their own that feed into the story"

Carlisle Floyd, Composer

"The best thing about Sci-Fi, which is my favorite genre, is that there are no rules for behavior. So you can do anything you want"

Brion James, Actor

"To write is a humiliation"

Edward Dahlberg, Novelist

"I will write another book if I feel like it"

James Herriot, Writer

"I think it was the fact that I liked it so much that made the writing just come out of me automatically"

James Herriot, Writer

"I became a connoisseur of that nasty thud a manuscript makes when it comes through the letter box"

James Herriot, Writer

"I thought I wanted to be a playwright because I was interested in stories and telling stories"

Francis Ford Coppola, Director

"I wrote the script of Patton. I had this very bizarre opening where he stands up in front of an American flag and gives this speech. Ultimately, I was fired. When the script was done, they hired another writer and that script was forgotten"

Francis Ford Coppola, Director

"Literature is the expression of a feeling of deprivation, a recourse against a sense of something missing. But the contrary is also true: language is what makes us human. It is a recourse against the meaningless noise and silence of nature and history"

Octavio Paz, Poet

"I suppose that writers should, in a way, feel flattered by the censorship laws. They show a primitive fear and dread at the fearful magic of print"

John Mortimer, Novelist

"I've made up stuff that's turned out to be real, that's the spooky part"

Tom Clancy, Novelist

"I had to wait for a long time before I could support myself with writing. However, being a writer is what I have most wanted to be, from the time I was a child"

Margaret Mahy, Author

"When I'm writing, sometimes it gets to that place where I feel like the piece is writing itself and I'm trying not to get in the way"

John Zorn, Composer

"My theory is that I decided to be a writer when I was about seven, but of course it is not as simple as that. Like most writers, I had to work at other things to earn a living and wrote mainly in the evenings, often very late at night, for many years"

Margaret Mahy, Author

"Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self"

Cyril Connolly, Journalist

"A great writer creates a world of his own and his readers are proud to live in it. A lesser writer may entice them in for a moment, but soon he will watch them filing out"

Cyril Connolly, Journalist

"A best-seller is the golden touch of mediocre talent"

Cyril Connolly, Journalist

"At that time, I had recently finished a book called Amazing Grace, which many people tell me is a very painful book to read. Well, if it was painful to read, it was also painful to write. I had pains in my chest for two years while I was writing that book"

Jonathan Kozol, Writer

"The biggest rap on me is that I don't find a Watergate every couple of years. Well, Watergate was unique. It's not something Carl Bernstein, I, or the Washington Post caused"

Bob Woodward, Journalist

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