Quotes & Sayings About Rough Drafts

We should call on the Creator to show more modesty. He created the world in a frenzy of excitement. Instead of revising his rough drafts, he had his work printed straightaway. What a lot of contradictions there are in it. What a log of typing errors, inconsistencies in the plot, passages that are too long and wordy, characters that are entirely superfluous. But it is painful and difficult to cut and trim the living cloth of a book written and published in too much of a hurry — Vasily Grossman

A novel rough draft is like bread dough; you need to beat the crap out of it for it to rise. — Chris Baty

There's pressure to come up with something genius every time. I feel like I keep letting myself down with my Twitter posts. I have to start keeping a journal of rough drafts of prophetic ideas about the world. — Ari Graynor

[News is] a first rough draft of history. — Phil Graham

The dictionary is, however, only a rough draft. — Monique Wittig

It's my belief that you should never show your work to anyone in the publishing world until it shines like a diamond. Rough drafts don't shine, as a rule. Mine certainly didn't. That's why I was rejected for years and years. — Patrick Rothfuss

Only ambitious nonentities and hearty mediocrities exhibit their rough drafts. It's like passing around samples of sputum. — Vladimir Nabokov

The first rough draft of history. — Ben Bradlee

Maybe it's true that an infinite number of monkeys typing on an infinite number of keyboards will eventually produce the complete works of Shakespeare. But you'd go mad reading all of their rough drafts, — James Browning

Because your goal is a complete rough draft of a novel, and every rough draft, by being complete, is perfect. — Jane Smiley

It also signals to me, when I pick up a pencil, that this is a rough draft. This is not going anywhere, and no one's going to see it. You have permission to make all the mistakes you want. It signals freedom to me, and it signals mistakes. — Lily King

Literary Agent: "I meant manuscript wise."
Tina: "Ohh. Um, yes. I've brought a few with me, just some rough drafts. (shuffle, shuffle) You might say something of an experiment. — Christina Engela

At least initially, the relationship took on a nineteenth-century epistolatory quality. The only way they could stay in touch was by letter. In 1991, while South Korea was becoming the world's largest exporter of mobile telephones, few North Koreans had ever used a telephone. You had to go to a post office to make a phone call. But even writing a letter was not a simple undertaking. Writing paper was scarce. People would write in the margins of newspapers. The paper in the state stores was made of corn husk and would crumble easily if you scratched too hard. Mi-ran had to beg her mother for the money to buy a few sheets of imported paper. Rough drafts were out of the question; paper was too precious. The distance from Pyongyang to Chongjin was only 250 miles, but letters took up to a month to be delivered. — Barbara Demick

Journalism is the first rough draft of history — Donald E. Graham