Write On Me Quotes & Sayings

There is a part of me that has to depend on fantasy, because if you can't be somewhat of a fantasy person, then you can't write — Stevie Nicks

And I knew what I wanted: I would settle in a hill station and write my novel. I had visions of myself at a table on a large veranda, my notes spread out in front of me next to a steaming cup of tea. Green hills heavy with mists would lie at my feet and the shrill cries of monkeys would fill my ears. The weather would be just tight, requiring a light sweater mornings and evenings, and something short-sleeved midday. Thus set up, pen in hand, for the sake of greater truth, I would turn Portugal into a fiction. That's what fiction is about, isn't it, the selective transforming the reality? The twisting of it to bring out its essence? What need did I have to go to Portugal? — Yann Martel

But 'why then publish?' There are no rewards
Of fame or profit when the world grows weary.
I ask in turn why do you play at cards?
Why drink? Why read? To make some hour less dreary.
It occupies me to turn back regards
On what I've seen or pondered, sad or cheery,
And what I write I cast upon the stream
To swim or sink. I have had at least my dream. — George Gordon Byron

A lot of people have already been impacted by the Life Cube Project and the principles behind it. They write to me and post on social media all the time, about their dreams coming true after writing them down, or how writing down their goals resonated with them. — Scott Cohen

I couldn't make myself write serious; I was surrounded by serious: in monographs, in articles, in my own dissertation prospectus, in the very earnest e-mails of students telling me just why that paper couldn't be in on time, cross their hearts and hope to get an A-minus. — Lauren Willig

I know. Love should be easier than this," I complained. "If this were a romantic comedy, it'd be called Love Actually Sucks." "Maybe we should've stuck with Sex and the City." "Tried that. Ended up Knocked Up. I should've gone for being a 40-Year-Old Virgin, but I had way too much of a head start." "We can write a manual on How to Lose a Guy in 10 Weeks." Cary looked at me. "Fucking perfect. — Sylvia Day

As a young writer, I was on guard against the Latina in me, the Spanish in me because as far as I could see the models that were presented to me did not include my world. In fact, 'I was told by one teacher in college that one could only write poetry in the language in which one first said Mother. That left me out of American literature, for sure. — Julia Alvarez

The vast majority of you are going to close this tab without, even for a single moment, entertaining the thought of writing something.

Step outside your comfort zone and try something new. Learning the fine rationalist art of CoZE (comfort zone expansion) is a really important life skill, and putting your writing online is a low-risk way to do that. Don't try to cop out with "I don't have any stories." Baloney. Everyone has stories; write up a memory that's important to you. And don't even try to tell me, "Oh, but I don't know how to write!" Neither did I when I started; I learned by doing. So please, set the excuses aside, put something up on the web, and share it with the rest of us. When you do, drop me a PM; I'll leave you your first review, but you have to publish something first.

Well? What are you waiting for? Seriously. Go write one sentence of a new story, write now. — David K. Storrs

Writers sometimes write things for me and I like to see what they write because I want to see what their take on my delivery is or what they think that I can do with something. So I kind of leave that to them. — Isaiah Mustafa

I just really enjoying creating in general; I used to also write stories and play music and do different crafts, but illustration ended up being the creative outlet that I focused on for my career. I feel like illustration gives me the flexibility to tackle more abstract or loose ideas, as well as just enjoy the process of putting time into developing a skill. — Julie Dillon

If I buy a Fiat Uno, I'll read that, for a man like me, a Ferrari was more suitable. If instead I buy a Ferrari, they'll write that I should have kept my feet on the ground and bought a Fiat. If I smile, I'm not serious. If I don't smile, I'm a rich sulker that doesn't enjoy having the most beautiful job in the world. — Mario Balotelli

Margaret Fuller Slack I WOULD have been as great as George Eliot But for an untoward fate. For look at the photograph of me made by Penniwit, Chin resting on hand, and deep - set eyes - Gray, too, and far-searching. But there was the old, old problem: Should it be celibacy, matrimony or unchastity? Then John Slack, the rich druggist, wooed me, Luring me with the promise of leisure for my novel, And I married him, giving birth to eight children, And had no time to write. It was all over with me, anyway, When I ran the needle in my hand While washing the baby's things, And died from lock - jaw, an ironical death. Hear me, ambitious souls, Sex is the curse of life. — Edgar Lee Masters

It's very common for people to recommend something to me because they're going on what I've already written, when, what really is the case, is that you want to write about something you haven't written about, in ways that you haven't done before. — Tom Stoppard

I wish I could write while I'm on the road but it never works for me. I need to be sitting still. — Jami Attenberg

Writing is learned by imitation. I learned to write mainly by reading writers who were doing the kind of writing I wanted to do and by trying to figure out how they did it. S. J. Perelman told me that when he was starting out he could have been arrested for imitating Ring Lardner. Woody Allen could have been arrested for imitating S. J. Perelman. And who hasn't tried to imitate Woody Allen? Students often feel guilty about modeling their writing on someone else's writing. They think it's unethical - which is commendable. Or they're afraid they'll lose their own identity. The point, however, is that we eventually move beyond our models; we take what we need and then we shed those skins and become who we are supposed to become. But — William Zinsser

Corruption is subtle, just like the Bible said. Many young poets have come to me and asked, How am I gonna make it? They feel, and often with considerable justice, that they are being overlooked while others with less talent are out there making careers for themselves. I always give the same advice. I say, Do it the hard way, and you'll always feel good about yourself. You write because you have to, and you get this unbelievable satisfaction from doing it well. Try to live on that as long as you're able. — Philip Levine

All I cared about then was catching a glimpse of Chairman Mao. I turned my eyes quickly away from Liu to the front of the motorcade. I spotted Mao's stalwart back, his right arm steadily waving. In an instant, he had disappeared. My heart sank. Was that all I would see of Chairman Mao? Only a fleeting glimpse of his back? The sun seemed suddenly to have turned gray. All around me the Red Guards were making a huge din. The girl standing next to me had just pierced the index finger of her right hand and was squeezing blood out of it to write something on a neatly folded handkerchief. I knew exactly the words she was going to use. It had been done many times by other Red Guards and had been publicized ad nauseam: "I am the happiest person in the world today. I have seen our Great Leader Chairman Mao!" Watching her, my despair grew. Life seemed pointless. A thought flickered into my mind: perhaps I should commit suicide? — Jung Chang

There is an incident which occurred at the examination during my first year at the high school and which is worth recording. Mr. Giles, the Educational Inspector, had come on a visit of inspection. He had set us five words to write as a spelling exercise. One of the words was 'kettle'. I had mis-spelt it. The teacher tried to prompt me with the point of his boot, but I would not be prompted. It was beyond me to see that he wanted me to copy the spelling from my neighbour's slate, for I had thought that the teacher was there to supervise us against copying. The result was that all the boys, except myself, were found to have spelt every word correctly. Only I had been stupid. The teacher tried later to bring this stupidity home to me, but without effect. I never could learn the art of 'copying'. — Mahatma Gandhi

I didn't kill myself
when things went wrong
I didn't turn
to drugs or teaching
I tried to sleep
but when I couldn't sleep
I learned to write
I learned to write
what might be read
on nights like this
by one like me — Leonard Cohen

I'm afraid of coaching, of writer's classes, of writer's magazines, of books on how to write. They give me centipede trouble - you know the yarn about the centipede who was asked how he managed all his feet? He tried to answer, stopped to think about it, and was never able to walk another step. — Robert A. Heinlein

I like monsters in general - that's what I like to write about. Somebody was joking with me that my body was becoming a manual for a role-playing game because I'm covered in little monsters. That's true. I could easily have more monsters on my skin. — Maria Dahvana Headley

If I could write directly on a typewriter or a computer, I would do it. But keyboards have always intimidated me. I've never been able to think clearly with my fingers in that position. A pen is a much more primitive instrument. You feel that the words are coming out of your body and then you dig the words into the page. — Paul Auster

For me, when I go in to write a profile, and no ground rules are laid down, and I'm there to write an on-the-record profile and cover readings while in the room, then that means it's on the record. — Michael Hastings

I only tweet about food and silly things, but it's really fascinating because I get a lot of response on Twitter, and I'm always looking at the type of people who write me on there, and it is such a variety. — Sutton Foster

Shortly before the United States entered World War II, I received an invitation to come to the American Consulate in Vienna to pick up my immigration visa. My old parents were overjoyed because they expected that I would soon be allowed to leave Austria. I suddenly hesitated, however. The question beset me: could I really afford to leave my parents alone to face their fate, to be sent, sooner or later, to a concentration camp, or even to a so-called extermination camp? Where did my responsibility lie? Should I foster my brain child, logotherapy, by emigrating to fertile soil where I could write my books? Or should I concentrate on my duties as a real child, the child of my parents who had to do whatever he could to protect them? — Viktor E. Frankl

The main characters for 'The Seer and the Sword' made an appearance one night and then haunted me for over five years before I began to write them down. Does that count as inspiration? For me, characters tend to show up, stay on to help with the work of writing their stories, and then occasionally deign to visit after a book is finished. — Victoria Hanley

The habits of a lifetime when everything else had to come before writing are not easily broken, even when circumstances now often make it possible for writing to be first; habits of years - responses to others, distractibility, responsibility for daily matters - stay with you, mark you, become you. The cost of discontinuity (that pattern still imposed on women) is such a weight of things unsaid, an accumulation of material so great, that everything starts up something else in me; what should take weeks take me sometimes months to write; what should take months, takes years. — Tillie Olsen

No one can sing well, play well, or write well, without living through moments of the deepest pain and anguish. Every real talent has known times of torturing depression when the heart in its agony has cried out to God: "Why hast Thou forsaken me? What have I done that I should suffer so?" And then, at the very darkest moment, suddenly, the veil is torn from their eyes! Truth, with her flaming torch, stands before them, and they understand that God sends them suffering to strengthen and ennoble their talent, that it may touch men's hearts and show to tired wanderers on earth glimpses of heaven. — Aimee Dostoyevsky

Someone asked me if I would like to write a man on death row, be a pen pal, and I was like, sure. I volunteered. I had been in a place in my life - a relationship had ended; my parents were getting elderly - I was kind of adrift. The name that was given to me, just randomly, was Todd Willingham. And he wrote me a letter, and in this letter, he thanked me for writing him and [said that] if I would like to visit, he would put me on his visitor list ... I was just really struck by the letter from Todd. It was very polite; it was very kind. — Elizabeth Gilbert

But it was not what I wanted to do! I wanted to star in a silent movie and vamp the sheik, take a trip to the South Seas ... walk naked in the sand and surf ... write a novel about it. Be the Empress of the Galaxy, be discovered by a hero that would ravish me, and take me away on high adventure! Take a interminable motor home trip across the US and find out how the past had become the present. Journey to Europe, speak flawless French, and become the courtesan in the country chalet where all the real people came to party." She laughed again. "Mostly I did not want be confined to routine ... endless routine. — William C. Samples

Until they give me opportunity to write about matters that are not-me, the world must go on uninstructed and unreformed, and I can only do my best with the one small subject upon which I am allowed to discourse. — Helen Keller

When a song came on the radio that I wanted to learn, my mother would quickly write down the lyrics for me. Soon after, I would be singing it. — Kiran Ahluwalia

Life's so brief," she goes on. "We're, at every juncture, staring mortality in the face. It's the very least we can do if we think it will be of any interest or value, to share the past. And although mine's been crooked, it's also been splendid. It's taught me to be vulnerable and humble, to write this book. — Kate Mulgrew

I don't need to write. Madness or suicide are other options, though not nearly as compelling. But I want to create; I hope to create worlds in my own image, admittedly a self-centered plan. I want others to understand me better, pay more attention to me, like or love me for who I am. Maybe that's it. Or maybe I should simply learn to say, Let's have lunch. — Chila Woychik

When I was child, I never spoke. Teacher used to write remarks on my note book. My mom sent me to a trainer. I started talking, and it gave me confidence. — Boman Irani

Sometimes melody and sometimes lyrics. It depends on the tempo and feel of the song. Slower pieces usually begin with melody and faster ones with lyrics. I write for the song and it leads me to my conclusion. — Ronnie James Dio

Your eyes make me pick up my pen and write. — Avijeet Das

In every novel, I write about something - a place, an experience, an emotion - with which I'm intimately familiar, but it's also crucial to me that I take on challenges. If write only inside my comfort zone, I'll suffocate. — Julia Glass

My dear Isa, I now sit down on my botom to answer all your kind and beloved letters which you was so good as to write to me. — Marjorie Fleming

When we parted, she held on to me tight and said, I love you, Logan. Don't let's lose touch.' I couldn't stop the tears and neither could she, so she lit a cigarette and I said it looked like rain wasn't far off, and somehow we managed to part.
As I write this I feel that draining, hollowing helplessness that genuine love for another produces in you. It's at these moments that we know that we are going to die. Only with Freya, Stella and Gail. Only three. Better than none. — William Boyd

This dead man is bound up with my life, therefore I must do everything, promise everything in order to save myself; I swear blindly that I mean to live only for his sake and his family, with wet lips I try to placate him--and deep down in me lies the hope that I may buy myself off in this way and perhaps even get out of this; it is a little stratagem: if only I am allowed to escape, then I will see to it. So I open the book and read slowly:--Gerard Duval, compositor.

With the dead man's pencil write the address on an envelope, then swiftly thrust everything back into his tunic.

I have killed the printer, Gerard Duval. I must be a printer, I think confusedly, be a printer, printer... — Erich Maria Remarque

I write anywhere. I'm always banging around on the dashboard. Whatever I'm doing. I can make music out of anything. Whenever a song hits me, I'll pick some sort of melody or rhythm out on it, and kind of enhance the song. — Dolly Parton

People write things in newspapers about me that aren't true - or that are true. They take pictures of my kids on the way to school. I get a little bit inured to it in a way that I think most people probably aren't. — Maggie Gyllenhaal

The only difference, I suppose, between them and me is that I never set out to write shit. (That is: merely sufficient, average.) And of all the crimes that may be attributed to me - numbering among them rudeness, lechery, viciousness, imprudence and disgusting egocentricity - the one that can never be laid on me is the one epitomized by the line, I just write what they want, by Tuesday, take the money and run. — Harlan Ellison

There is a part of me that wants to write, a part that wants to theorize, a part that wants to sculpt, a part that wants to teach ... To force myself into a single role, to decide to be just on thing in life, would kill off large parts of me. — Hugh Prather

Please write and tell me about London, I live for the day when I step off the boat-train and feel its dirty sidewalks under my feet. I want to walk up Berkeley Square and down Wimpole Street and stand in St.Paul's where John Donne preached and sit on the step Elizabeth sat on when she refused to enter the Tower, and like that. A newspaper man I know, who was stationed in London during the war, says tourists go to England with preconceived notions, so they always find exactly what they go looking for. I told him I'd go looking for the England of English literature, and he said:
Then it's there. — Helene Hanff

I think I was born to write. My mother would put a typewriter on the dining room table and say "there you go".

My first story was published in the Christian Herald and they would pay me five guineas. I wrote my first novel when I was just 14.

I was into mysteries and thrillers at the time but I eventually I drifted into romance because my mother would always ask me to write 'something pretty'.

I've never got bored of it because its something I absolutely love. My books are full of hope and romance rather than sex.

They are a form of escapism - you can escape the parts of the world that you don't like. — Ida Pollock

I got jury duty ... and I didn't want to go, so my friend said, "You should write something really really racist on the form when you return it. Like, you should put 'I hate chinks'." And I said, "I'm not going to put that on there just to get out of jury duty. I don't want people to think that about me." So instead I wrote, "I love chinks." And who doesn't? — Sarah Silverman

I was only going to shoot you if he was in one band. And only if it had a name like Uncle Toejam's Acid Crematorium or something. But bluegrass is good, and hey, music is MY life too. Maybe I'll actually like the guy (assuming he's around long enough). Just don't write and tell me you're in the process of stirring up some baby Custard-Mustards. — Ellen Wittlinger

original plan to write about September 11, 2001, in the I Survived series. But over the past two years, I have received more than a thousand e-mails from kids asking me to write about this topic. At school visits, there are always kids who raise their hands and ask, "Will you be writing about 9/11?" At first, my answer was always no. I was shocked that you would be so curious about that terrible day, which I had been trying to forget since it happened. I have friends who lost family members on 9/11 and others — Lauren Tarshis

I'm not the sort of person who does my mathematics writing on paper. I do that at the last stage of the game. I do my mathematics in my head. I sit down for a hard day's work and I write nothing all day. I just think. And I walk up and down because that helps keep me awake, it keeps the blood circulating, and I think and think. — Michael Atiyah

It's confusing when people who do not know me say they miss the old me. You know me merely through the lyrics I write and the pictures I've been in. There is no old or new Hayley. There is however an older Hayley. I'm 25 now. Good on me for living through all these years with a million people's judging eyes all over me and thinking they know me better. — Hayley Williams

More than 100,000 soldiers will soon return home with the post-traumatic stress I know so well, not to mention the mysterious effects of deplted uranium ... and the ripples of resentment and animosity this war has sent throughout the world will inevitably wash up on U.S. shores.
As I write this, mainstream political dialogue is still focused on the crazy idea that we can somehow still "win" the war in Iraq. For someone like me, a citizen of both countries, what outcome would constitute a victory? When you're talking about war, about so many thousands dead, so many families shattered on both sides, how can anyone claim victory? — Wafaa Bilal

I don't want to think that anything is off limits for me to write about, but I also don't want to intrude on anybody's life, which is why there's very little specificity or names in the songs I write. — J. D. Souther

You don't even like poetry," Tessa said, her voice catching on a half laugh of relief.
"No. But you make me want to write it. Does that not count for anything? — Cassandra Clare

Nora - Forgive me for copyediting, but it must be said - you have raped the semicolon yet again. Stop it. It wasn't asking for it no matter how it was dressed. If you don't know how to use punctuation then do away with it altogether, write like Faulkner and we'll pretend it's on purpose.
Bite me, Easton, Nora said to herself as she corrected her sexually compromised semicolon in chapter eighteen. Seriously, bite me. — Tiffany Reisz

Every day, while I was writing out my description of what I was going to write for the knowledge component of the triangle, I would play the scene through in my mind and try to get excited about it. I'd look for all the cool little hooks, the parts that interested me most, and focus on those since they were obviously what made the scene cool. If I couldn't find anything to get excited over, then I would change the scene, or get rid of it entirely. I decided then and there that, no matter how useful a scene might be for my plot, boring scenes had no place in my novels. — Rachel Aaron

I do not want and will not take a royalty on any record I record. I think paying a royalty to a producer or engineer is ethically indefensible. The band write the songs. The band play the music. It's the band's fans who buy the records. The band is responsible for whether it's a great record or a horrible record. Royalties belong to the band. I would like to be paid like a plumber. I do the job and you pay me what it's worth. — Steve Albini

For me, the challenge is just making great albums, because talent - and writing in general - is not tangible. There's no expiration date on it. At the same time, you might wake up tomorrow and be unable to write music. — Jay-Z

I always write back to people who are kind enough to write to me. Actually, I don't write - I recline on my red velvet sofa with my feet on the coffee table and dictate the letters to my eldest son. — Sue Townsend

Usually, Shakespeare gives me goose bumps. The guy knows everything. Like some ancient angel quill-ing out blueprints life. Hiding it in fiction. And usually I love the sound of the words, the way they dance on the page. Today, they fall flat. My attention bobbing in the cosmos. All free brain-space is marinating in gap month fizz. I chew my pen, candy-cane style. The million possibilities ahead make it hard to care about right now. I write my answers slowly, each letter carved in stone not ballpoint. I'm going to explore the world, find my passion, try everything! The fizz shoots up my spine and a smile sprouts. — Jolene Stockman

All these interviews I'm doing - this is the kind of stuff that I was dreaming about doing when I was younger. I was praying for people to want to write about me. I wanted people to hear my music. I wanted to perform. I wanted to be on billboards. — Shameik Moore

Are you kidding me?' Shan asked, slightly drunk, slightly dramatic, and now sitting yoga style on the floor. 'You can't write an honest novel about race in this country. If you write about how people are really affected by race, it'll be too obvious. Black writers who do literary fiction in this country, all three of them, not the ten thousand who write those bullshit ghetto books with the bright covers, have two choices: they can do precious or they can do pretentious. When you do neither, nobody knows what to do with you. So if you're going to write about race, you have to make sure it's so lyrical and subtle that the reader who doesn't read between the lines won't even know it's about race ... ' p.335 — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

I never stay with people and I never look people up when I travel. I depend more on just chance meetings. The advantage is that people don't know who I am. I meet people casually and they're not doing me a big favor because I'm going to write something. — Paul Theroux

I'm sure I would have been considered a more significant artist if I was a singer-songwriter. It's just not the way I roll. I love being a curator and a musicologist. People write me letters and thank me for turning them on to Fred McDowell and Sippie Wallace, and that's partly my job this time around. — Bonnie Raitt

Writing keeps me at my desk, constantly trying to write a perfect sentence. It is a great privilege to make one's living from writing sentences. The sentence is the greatest invention of civilization. To sit all day long assembling these extraordinary strings of words is a marvelous thing ...
For me, a line has to sing before it does anything else. The great thrill is when a sentence that starts out being completely plain suddenly begins to sing, rising far above itself and above any expectation I might have had for it. That's what keeps me going on those dark December days when I think about how I could be living instead of writing. — John Banville

I always wanted to be a writer, but Alan Moore's work and help inspired me to write comics. In some ways the biggest influence on me writing was Punk. There was the idea that you could do something by simply doing it. — Neil Gaiman

On June 30th, 1983, I wrote in my diary, "Why couldn't I write more when I was little? I would've known what my life was like to me then. — Rebecca Rose Orton

If you gonna challenge my ways, know my history. Don't put nobody in my face that don't know about me, or they here to write an article on someone they thought was hot when they was hot. Come on, man. I been hot. — Raekwon

Sandy fidgeted with his pen. "There's something I didn't write down. Maybe I shouldn't tell you, you being a judge and all, but, well, Jake Wexler ... he's a bookie."
No, he should not have told her. "A small-time operator, I'm sure, Mr. McSouthers," the judge replied coldly. "It can have no bearing on the matter before us. Sam Westing manipulated people, cheated workers, bribed officials, stole ideas, but Sam Westing never smoked or drank or placed a bet. Give me a bookie any day over such a fine, upstanding, clean-living man. — Ellen Raskin

I understood at once, I am not living, but actively dying. I am smoking, living unhealthily. I'm shutting down. I need to go the other way, inside. And it was so clear to me what I was doing. It was suddenly perfectly clear.
I understood, I need to write. Live here, in my words, and my head. I need to go inside, that's all. No big, complicated, difficult thing. I just need to go in reverse. And not worry about what to write about, but just write. Or, if I'm going to worry about what to write, then do this worrying on paper, so at least I'm writing and will have a record of the anxiety. — Augusten Burroughs

I think of Jeremy telling me I had to be ruthless to be a writer. And I think how I did not go visit my brother and sister and my parents because I was always working on a story and there was never enough time. (But I didn't want to go either.) There never was enough time, and then later I knew if I stayed in my marriage I would not write another book, not the kind I wanted to, and there is that as well. But really, the ruthlessness, I think, comes in grabbing onto myself, in saying: This is me, and I will not go where I can't bear to go - to Amgash, Illinois - and I will not stay in a marriage when I don't want to, and I will grab myself and hurl onward through life, blind as a bat, but on I go! This is the ruthlessness, I think. — Elizabeth Strout

Producing words isn't a problem for me. And I usually write two books at a time. When one horse gets winded, you jump on the other. — Don Winslow

I like having people with me to lean on and write with and have fun with. — Selena

I was so naive in radio technique that I knew nothing about timing. I would write pages on Honus Wagner and then get only half through by the time the show ended. I eventually learned, but there was nobody there to school me. — Waite Hoyt

I think my experience as an actor helps me to write anything. It certainly helped me to write 'August Osage County.' It helps me to write any play that I'm working on because I think one of the things I do well is write good roles for actors. — Tracy Letts

My son is a great kid and does super well in school. I couldn't be prouder of him. What I tell him is, 'You don't want to just be known for being the son of a rich rock 'n' roll star.' I've seen a lot of kids like that. I want him to be happy, work hard and create his own thing. I tell him, 'You're not gonna be one of these kids up on stage playing with me. If you wanna have hits - write your own. Then we can play together.' — Kid Rock

I've gotten a little superstitious about listening to music when I write. Once a story is going somewhere, I keep listening to the same music whenever I work on that story. It seems to help me keep in voice, and alternatively, if I need to make some kind of dramatic shift, I'll go and put on something different to shake myself awake. — Kelly Link

He was not such a special person. He loved to read very much, and also to write. He was a poet, and he exhibited me many of his poems. I remember many of them. They were silly, you could say, and about love. He was always in his room writing those things, and never with people. I used to tell him, What good is all that love doing on paper? I said, Let love write on you for a little. But he was so stubborn. Or perhaps he was only timid. — Jonathan Safran Foer

I love all the girls who have my song on their myspaces. I love the people who come to my shows and put the pictures on here. I love the people at those shows who sing along with me. I love reading your stories in emails, some so touching they've given me chills. I love every single person who has wanted my autograph, because for the life of me I never really thought it would mean something to someone for me to write my name down. I love the little girls who stand in line with their mothers like I used to do. That was me. I love the couple who danced to my song at their wedding. Every comment, letter, and message. I love people who listen to the radio. I love every single person who is reading this, because you've let me into your life.
I love you all so much, I just wanted you to know. — Taylor Swift

I do not want to write beyond this point, because those days when I studied relentlessly are nostalgic to me; and on the other hand, I am sad when I think how I have become increasingly preoccupied with matters other than study. — Hideki Yukawa

Tell me about school, NoahNoah," the old man says..."Our teacher made us write a story about what we want to be when we're big," Noah tells him. "What did you write?""I wrote that I wanted to concentrate on being little first. — Fredrik Backman

Writing is my form of communication. I may not call someone on the telephone; I cannot stand to talk on the phone. I may not visit, make play dates, or organize nights out with friends, but I will, if they are willing - write. I will write messages, emails, and chat online - it is the easiest, most honest way for me to communicate with the world. — Jeannie Davide-Rivera

You need to write your own book, the book of your heart and not chase the fads. It truly has to be the story you want to tell, it needs that fire, your fire in it. Then enjoy the time pre-publication. It is time to learn all you can about your craft and the industry. It isn't a race. Finally listen to your work. I have text to voice software that reads the books to me. Listening I can hear things that I would miss on the page. — Liz Fenwick

I'm a big believer in lists. You write your wants down on paper, and it's like putting them out there to the Universe: 'Bitch, you gotta make this happen for me. — Katy Evans

I never had a plan, except to write. I love what I do, and have from the beginning. Loving what you do makes it a lot easier to work, every day, to face the tough spots and heel in for the long haul. Nothing against plans; they work for some people. But for me, if I'd been planning, worrying about numbers, trying to micro-manage my career, I wouldn't have focused on the writing. If you don't write, you're not read. If you're not read, you don't sell. So that's my Master Plan, I guess. Write the books, let the agent agent, the editor edit, the publisher publish. — Nora Roberts

I try never to focus on the radio, just find great songs, find emotion and just write the best songs you can. I think when you get fixated on trying to do something too accurate, it becomes more washed out and less what you intended it to be. So I think each time the challenge for me is to try and reinvent a little bit. — Gary Allan

A story is a story is a story. The only difference is in the techniques you bring to bear. There are always limitations on what you can and can't do. But I enjoy that. Just like when you write a sonnet or haiku, there are rules you have to abide by. And to me, playing within the rules is the fun part. It keeps the brain fresh. — J. Michael Straczynski

Over the years, there certainly have been plenty of ideas that I've had and given up on, but for this one, the only thing that was standing in its way was me doing it - I just had to write it ... And then if it didn't happen, it didn't happen. But I didn't want it to be for lack of effort on my part, so I had hunch that it would be a good story and that we would work well together. And it certainly worked out that way. — Paul Reiser

Storytelling is a business of unique snowflakes. Every writer is different; every book is different; every reader is different. This is why it's so hard to give writing advice, because what works for me might be poison to someone else. But if I could make one absolute assertion, it would be this: If you are not enjoying your writing, you're doing it wrong. A book is not a battle, nor is it a conquest. A book is a story, and telling it should be an enjoyable exercise. So the next time you don't want to write, don't waste time beating yourself up. Instead, stop and ask yourself why. Why do you not want to do this fundamentally enjoyable thing? What's really going on? — Rachel Aaron

I always imagined that you might write something about me. I wanted to leave an imprint on your life. I don't want to be "just another patient". I wanted to be "special". I want to be something, anything. I feel like nothing, no one. If I left an imprint on your life, maybe I would be someone, someone you wouldn't forget. I'd exist then. (Marge's letter to Yalom) — Irvin D. Yalom

Sydney: Can I ask you a question? Me: As long as you promise never again to start a question off with whether or not you can propose a question. Sydney: Okay, asshole. I know I shouldn't be thinking about him at all, but I'm curious. What did he wrote on that paper when we went to get my purse? And what did you write back that made hit you? Me: I agree that you shouldn't be thinking about him at all, but I'm honestly shocked it's taken you this long to ask me about it. Sydney: Well? Ugh. I hate writing it verbatim, but she wants to know, so ... Me: He wrote "Are you fucking her?" Sydney: OMG! What a prick! Me: Yep. Sydney: So what did you say back to him that made him punch you? Me: I write, "Why do you think I'm here for her purse? I gave her a hundred for tonight, and now she owes me change." I reread the text, and I'm not so sure it sounds as funny as I thought it did. — Colleen Hoover

The abortion cases produced an enormous amount of mail to my chambers, vastly more than to the other chambers, I am sure. I sometimes thought there wasn't a woman in the United States who didn't write me a letter on one side or the other of that issue. — Sandra Day O'Connor

If some of the people who write about mojo came with me for a week, they would drop dead on their feet. — William Hague

Both law and comedy are heavily focused on thought and viewing all angles. To write a good joke, you have to look at a premise every way possible. And with a good legal argument, you have to see all sides to get the best line of argument for your client. Law school made me a better comic, and comedy has made me a better public speaker. — Troy Walker

Money is a huge issue for manic depressives. Sometimes the problem is not nearly on the same scale as it has been for me, but nonetheless, it's difficult to deal with. Many get themselves into debt that can take years to clear up, write bad cheques, shoplift and borrow huge amounts from family and friends. — Andy Behrman

In good time she made tea; and afterwards, when I brought down my books, looked into them, and showed me what she knew of them (which was no slight matter, though she said it was), and what was the best way to learn and understand them. I see her, with her modest, orderly, placid manner, and I hear her beautiful calm voice, as I write these words. The influence for all good, which she came to exercise over me at a later time, begins already to descend upon my breast. I love little Em'ly, and I don't love Agnes - no, not at all in that way - but I feel that there are goodness, peace, and truth, wherever Agnes is; and that the soft light of the coloured window in the church, seen long ago, falls on her always, and on me when I am near her, and on everything around. — Charles Dickens

If you told me to write a love song tonight, I'd have a lot of trouble. But if you tell me to write a love song about a girl with a red dress who goes into a bar and is on her fifth martini and is falling off her chair, that's a lot easier, and it makes me free to say anything I want. — Stephen Sondheim

Deliver me from writers who say the way they live doesn't matter. I'm not sure a bad person can write a good book. If art doesn't make us better, then what on earth is it for. — Alice Walker

Don't you want it?"
"Want what?"
"The engagement ring."
"Oh, is that what's in the box? You threw my engagement ring at me?" Boy, this was such a big transgression I would have to write it in block letters on its own page, and show it to our children when they grew up as an example of how not to do something. — Linda Howard