Pithy Writing Quotes & Sayings

I am a feminist. I'm trying to show the relationships between men and women, always the structural relations, not individual villains. I'd never make a husband a villain. I try very hard in my work not to - because if I made one man a villain, the rest would be off the hook. I'm interested in the system of oppression. — Alix Kates Shulman

Dreams, my mother always told me, represend part of our unconsciousness
the place where we store the true parts of our soul, away from the rest of the world. From Breena quoting her mother in Bitter Frost — Kailin Gow

There's nothing I need or want to know from the writers I admire that isn't in their books. It's better to read a good writer than meet one. — John Irving

Let us not be afraid to be humble, small, helpless to prove our love for God. The cup of water you give the sick, the way you lift a dying man, the way you feed a baby, the way you teach a dull child, the way you give medicine to a sufferer of leprosy, the joy with which you smile at your own at home - all this is God's love in the world today. — Mother Teresa

The best kind of praise is intelligent praise. — Rachel Heffington

When you write fiction, you have an ideal reader in your mind who's sort of you but smarter. — Darin Strauss

It was Kelda who said she wished there was a pool in Belvedere, because they were obviously very lucky to have a swim coach living in town. I hadn't said I was a swim coach, but I knew what she meant. It was a shame.
Then a strange thing happened. I was looking down at my shoes on the brown linoleum floor and I was thinking about how I bet this floor hadn't been washed in a million years and I suddenly felt like I was going to die. But instead of dying, I said: I can teach you how to swim. And we don't need a pool. — Miranda July

I'm a Christian woman, but I believe in human rights. I do not go into people's bedrooms. I appoint people based on their capabilities, not their sexual orientation. — Portia Simpson-Miller

I love and adore all of my family, except when I'm with them. — Chuck Palahniuk

It didn't take Celeste long to realize that this was going to be the sort of book club where the book was secondary to the proceedings. She felt a mild disappointment. She'd been looking forward to talking about the book. She'd even, embarrassingly, prepared for book club, like a good little lawyer, marking up a few pages with Post-it notes and writing a few pithy comments in the margins. — Liane Moriarty

Speech is highly elliptical. It would scarcely be endurable otherwise. Ellipsis is indispensable to the writer or speaker who wants to be brief and pithy, but it can easily cause confusion and obscurity and must be used with skill. — Bergen Evans

Sword fighting is not a dance, not in battle. You save all that showing off for the duels if you want to. In battle, when you kill, kill quickly, and be ready for the next enemy to come at you. One strike should be all it takes. It's all you'll get — G.R. Matthews

There were times when I was just listening to albums for the hype of it. Some albums, I would just put it on in my car, and me and my friends would just drive, that we'd wild out to, get arrested to. — Theophilus London

So learn about life. Cut yourself a big slice with the silver server, a big slice of pie. Open your eyes. Let life happen. — Sylvia Plath

There are things that you can't do - like writing letters to a part of yourself. To your feet or hair. Or heart. — Arundhati Roy

I have only made this letter longer because I have not had the time to make it shorter.
(Letter 16, 1657) — Blaise Pascal

Never listen to fear! Fear makes you stupid. — Nina George