Struggling Writers Quotes & Sayings

I never take any notice of what common people say, and I never interfere with what charming people do. If — Oscar Wilde

Now get some clothes on before the women around here are driven into a frenzy."
He gave me a mournful look. "I'm afraid that'll happen with or without clothes, my dear. — Richelle Mead

Well, I wasn't going to abuse him. I was only going to ask: Is there any quality which distinguishes his work from that of twenty struggling writers one could name? Of course not. He's a clever, prolific man; so are they. But he began with money and friends; he came from Oxford into the thick of advertised people; his name was mentioned in print six times a week before he had written a dozen articles. This kind of thing will become the rule. Men won't succeed in literature that they may get into society, but will get into society that they may succeed in literature. — George Gissing

My only ambition is to grow as a musician. — Jamie Cullum

Facing the sagging middle when writing a novel, while inevitable, may be
overcome by pre-planning. I divide my collection of proposed scenes into three acts, each scene inciting tension that builds toward the final crisis in Act Three. If by Act Two the emotional river isn't spilling over the banks, I reassess the plot so that once the writing is flowing I don't slide into a dry creek. The central character should be struggling to navigate life well into the end of Act One, even if her fiercest antagonist is only from within. — Patricia Hickman

Like most struggling writers trying to get their scripts commissioned, I had to do something odd to pay the rent. So, aged 21, I started up my own small cheesecake company in Philadelphia. — Nancy Meyers

I've had frank conversations with theaters who say, 'We love your play, but we've already done a play by another black person this year,' or 'I don't think the kind of people you write about are the ones our audience wants to see' ... Up and coming young black female writers are still struggling to have their voices heard and have their plays produced. — Katori Hall

To refer even in passing to unpublished or struggling authors and their problems is to put oneself at some risk, so I will say here and now that any unsolicited manuscripts or typescripts sent to me will be destroyed unread. You must make your way yourself. Why you should be so set on the nearly always disappointing profession is a puzzling question. — Kingsley Amis

John McCain was victimized in the South Carolina primary. — Mark Shields

There's still too much energy leftover at this tomb-desk, on Broadway, when I am semi-asleep at night in our bedroom, struggling to get a good night's rest. There's an overflow of loin energy. It spills out from my pores as if I were a cracked drum of reacting chemicals. I need to work to expend this excess energy in words, stories and books ... My mind is a body that's a mind. — Sergio Troncoso

There is not a country on earth that could get its fiscal house in order by shrinking opportunity and depressing growth. — Martin O'Malley

For when the law doth give any thing to one, it giveth impliedly whatsoever is necessary for the taking and enjoying of the same. — Edward Coke

The same issue is happening on a show like Everybody Loves Raymond now, which is in its eighth year and struggling to come up with good stories. It'll be interesting to see how they do. The bottom line is, it starts with the writers and ends with the writers. — William Devane

I made an awful mess of my first marriage. It was hard to live with me being me. I was so abnormal. I mean, most writers struggle. I hadn't struggled. I couldn't suddenly go down to the PEN Club and behave like a normal human being, because most of those guys were struggling to make a couple of thousand pounds a year. — John Le Carre

Recently I have been attacked in newspapers by two 'fabulist' writers, as far as I can make out for the ordinariness of the worlds I portray. To which the most obvious reply is that it's all very well writing about elves and dragons and goddesses rising out of the ground and the rest of it--who couldn't do that and make it colorful? (Readable, of course, is another matter...) But writing about pubs and struggling singer-songwriters--well, that's hard work. Nothing happens. Nothing happens, and yet, somehow, I have to persuade you that something is happening somewhere in the hearts and minds of my characters, even though they're just standing there drinking beer and making jokes about Peter Frampton. — Nick Hornby

Struggling writers are often advised to pick a simple genre, but it doesn't work that way. — Alan Furst

In the heart of every writer there lies a murderer.
Writers spend their lives struggling to conceal this murderous desire from other mortals.
Like God, they ruthlessly destroy the people of their own creation, drag them from one cruelty to another, meting out punishment, and with the callous indifference of a serial killer. And no one knows when he has taken a life from the solitude of his room. But when a writer is enraged the walls of his refuge come crumbling down, revealing his true identity. — Ahmet Altan

Too many people, once they reach a comfortable position in life, forget the important role writers like Hammett - who dropped out of high school in his first year to work supporting his family - or Howard - struggling to break into the pulps with absolutely no professional advice and little encouragement - play in literature, just as they tend to ignore the role the working man and woman play in society. — Don Herron

Mine is not a story to tell struggling writers. — Tom Bodett

I'm still struggling with the fact that due to my own (selfish) desire to be a writer, my children probably won't have the same opportunities I had growning up. For most students, however, I genuinely think it's about the money. It's a factor, sure. But it just feels like a factor. — Marina Keegan

When a warrior learns to stop the internal dialogue, everything becomes possible; the most far-fetched schemes become. — Carlos Castaneda

Almost everyone can remember losing his or her virginity, and most writers can remember the first book he/she put down thinking: I can do better than this. Hell, I am doing better than this! What could be more encouraging to the struggling writer than to realize his/her work is unquestionably better than that of someone who actually got paid for his/her stuff? — Stephen King

Yes, it was difficult - making 'The Act of Killing' in particular was a very lonely process. No one really believed in it until very close to the end. But it was also a sanctuary. I was working in obscurity. — Joshua Oppenheimer