Write Or Die Quotes & Sayings

The radicals assumed that acting was more important than speaking. Talking and writing books, Winstanley insisted, is 'all nothing and must die; for action is the life of all, and if thou dost not act, thou dost nothing.' It is a thought worth pondering by those who read books about the seventeenth-century radicals, no less than by those who write them. Were you doers or talkers only? Bunyan asked his generation. What canst thou say? — Christopher Hill

At this rate, I'd be lucky if I wrote a page a day.
Then I knew what the problem was.
I needed experience.
How could I write about life when I'd never had a love affair or a baby or even seen anybody die? A girl I knew had just won a prize for a short story about her adventures among the pygmies in Africa. How could I compete with that sort of thing? — Sylvia Plath

On Twitter, when someone would die, I would write a joke. Or if there's a tragedy, I would write a joke and tweet it. That was my thing, and then at a certain point, people started demanding it. — Anthony Jeselnik

I am stealing the golden vessels of the Egyptians to build a tabernacle to my God from them, far far away from the boundaries of Egypt. If you forgive me, I shall rejoice; if you are enraged with me, I shall bear it. See, I cast the die, and I write the book. Whether it is to be read by the people of the present or of the future makes no difference: let it await its reader for a hundred years, if God himself has stood ready for six thousand years for one to study him. — Johannes Kepler

I think all Internet comments should be disengaged. But I kind of live and die by it. It's completely irresistible. It's not like comedy. When I do a podcast or write an episode of TV, I have no feedback for that. That's the only way you know what you're doing is good or bad. — Harris Wittels

I've watched congregations devote years and years to heated arguments about whether a female missionary should be allowed to share about her ministry on a Sunday morning, whether students older than ten should have female Sunday school teachers, whether girls should be encouraged to attend seminary, whether women should be permitted to collect the offering or write the church newsletter or make an announcement ... all while thirty thousand children die every day from preventable disease. If that's not an adventure in missing the point, I don't know what is. — Rachel Held Evans

And some, like me, sit down and write because we're not brave enough to live or die. — V.J. Campilan

It would be the simplest thing to say, my homeland is where I was born. But when you returned, you found nothing. What does that mean? It would be the simplest thing to say, my homeland is where I will die. But you could die anywhere, or on the border between two places. What does that mean? After a while the question will become harder. Why did you leave? Why did you leave? For twenty years you have been asking, why did they leave? Leaving is not a negation of the homeland, but it does turn the problem into a question. Do not write a history now. When you do that, you leave the past behind, and what is required is to call the past to account. Do not write a history except that of your wounds. Do not write a history except that of your exile. You are here - here, where you were born. And where longing will lead you to death. So, what is homeland? — Mahmoud Darwish

We writers constantly try to build up our own confidence by getting published, making sales, winning prizes, joining cliques or proclaiming theories. The passion to write constantly strips this vanity aside and forces us to confront that loneliness and the uncertainty with which human beings, in the end, live and die. — Boria Sax

In general, I start with an idea and a general gist of how I want the story to end, and I let the characters write through me. Research along the way informs my characters of where they must go and what they must do when they get there. Fate and Chance have roles, too, pushing the characters out of their comfort zone and into circumstances where they must either grow, or die. Well. Grow or get really uncomfortable. (My stories thus far are not THAT heavy.) — Kristi Cramer

Religion was a lie that he had recognized early in life, and he found all religions offensive, considered their superstitious folderol meaningless, childish, couldn't stand the complete unadultness - the baby talk and the righteousness and the sheep, the avid believers. No hocus-pocus about death and God or obsolete fantasies of heaven for him. There was only our bodies, born to live and die on terms decided by the bodies that had lived and died before us. If he could be said to have located a philosophical niche for himself that was it - he'd come upon it early and intuitively, and however elemental, that was the whole of it. Should he ever write an autobiography, he'd call it The Life and Death of a Male Body. — Philip Roth

Far be it for me to have worked it out in any abstract way. I don't know why the bull and Mrs. May have to die, or why Mr. Fortune and Mary Fortune: I just feel in my bones that that is the way it has to be. If I had the abstraction first I don't suppose I would write the story. — Flannery O'Connor

We throw our parties; we abandon our families to live alone in Canada; we struggle to write books that do not change the world, despite our gifts and our unstinting efforts, our most extravagant hopes. We live our lives, do whatever we do, and then we sleep. It's as simple and ordinary as that. A few jump out windows, or drown themselves, or take pills; more die by accident; and most of us are slowly devoured by some disease, or, if we're very fortunate, by time itself. There's just this for consolation: an hour here or there when our lives seem, against all odds and expectations, to burst open and give us everything we've ever imagined, though everyone but children (and perhaps even they) know these hours will inevitably be followed by others, far darker and more difficult. Still, we cherish the city, the morning; we hope, more than anything, for more. Heaven only knows why we love it so ... — Michael Cunningham

She heard her father's voice as she prepared, remembering all the times she had taken dictation for him, or had overheard him instructing young botanists. 'Be wakeful and watchful,' she heard Henry say. 'Make sure you are not the only member of your party who can write or read a letter. If you need need to find water, follow a dog. If you are starving, eat insects before you waste your energy on hunting. Anything that a bird can eat, you can eat. Your biggest dangers are not snakes, lions, or cannibals; your biggest dangers are blistered feet, carelessness, and fatigue. Be certain to write your diaries and maps legibly; if you die, your notes may be of use to a future explorer. In an emergency, you can always write in blood. — Elizabeth Gilbert

There is no law by which to determine the superiority of nations; hence the vanity of the claim, and the idleness of disputes about it. A people risen, run their race, and die either of themselves or in the hands of another, who, succeeding to their power, take possession of their place, and upon their monuments write new names; such is history. — Lew Wallace

There is something at the bottom of every new human thought, every thought of genius, or even every earnest thought that springs up in any brain, which can never be communicated to others, even if one were to write volumes about it and were explaining one's idea for thirty-five years; there's something left which cannot be induced to emerge from your brain, and remains with you forever; and with it you will die, without communicating to anyone perhaps the most important of your ideas. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

I needed experience. How Could I write about life when I'd never had a love affair or a baby or even seen anybody die? — Sylvia Plath

No matter how long the preparation,
you will never feel ready to write an
exam, to start a business, to be parent
or even to die. Just go for it. — Moffat Machingura

We are born at the rise of the curtain and we die with its fall, and every night in the presence of our patrons we write our new creation, and every night it is blotted out forever; and of what use is it to say to audience or to critic, 'Ah, but you should have seen me last Tuesday?' — Micheal Mac Liammoir

Madame was in her room upstairs. She wore an open dressing gown that showed between the shawl facings of her bodice a pleated chamisette with three gold buttons. Her belt was a corded girdle with great tassels, and her small garnet coloured slippers had a large knot of ribbon that fell over her instep. She had bought herself a blotting book, writing case, pen-holder, and envelopes, although she had no one to write to; she dusted her what-not, looked at herself in the glass, picked up a book, and then, dreaming between the lines, let it drop on her knees. She longed to travel or to go back to her convent. She wished at the same time to die and to live in Paris. — Gustave Flaubert

By what I have read in books, I think few that have held a pen were ever really wearied, or they would write of it more strongly. I had no care of my life, neither past nor future, and I scarce remembered there was such a lad as David Balfour. I did not think of myself, but just of each fresh step which I was sure would be my last, with despair - and of Alan, who was the cause of it, with hatred. Alan was in the right trade as a soldier; this is the officer's part to make men continue to do things, they know not wherefore, and when, if the choice was offered, they would lie down where they were and be killed. And I dare say I would have made a good enough private; for in these last hours it never occurred to me that I had any choice but just to obey as long as I was able, and die obeying. — Robert Louis Stevenson

Self-slaughter is an extravagant enactment of feeling sorry for oneself. Suicide is stingy act, because no matter how wretched our life may currently be, a person can always rise tomorrow and perform some small act of kindness for other people, care for a pet, or perform some other caring act that works towards preserving nature's graciousness. To die of their own hand is to cheat other people and shortchange Mother Nature; it is taking without giving back in kind. What combats suicide is a sense of gratitude, a willingness to give to other people, and to cease living life as a taker. Without a profound appreciation for all that is living and devoid of a sincere willingness to contribute to the flourishing of all life forms, one can callously write off the value of their own life. — Kilroy J. Oldster

Write visually or die! — Jim Steranko

Dear Die-ary, I've been to heaven and hell ... and I still don't know if there is a god or a devil. Still ... it's something to write about. — Jhonen Vasquez

Behind every specific call, whether it is to teach or preach or write or encourage or comfort, there is a deeper call that gives shape to the first: the call to give ourselves away - the call to die. — Michael Card

With these Funny or Die videos, I do everything for them. I write them, act in them, and co-direct them with my buddy Brian McGinn, who I grew up with. We also edit them together. We're working on a small scale of Internet videos, but we're slowly trying to make them become a bigger thing. — Dave Franco

In the deepest hour of the night I confess to myself three things; I would die if I was forbidden to write, forbidden to love, or forbidden to fashion ... love each other, and celebrate the art and lifestyle of music. — Lady Gaga

The term - 'Fairy-Tales' is so ironical in itself, when I sometimes sit to write love stories with a happy ending, it usually drags me into a dilemma whether, I should even begin with a love story at first place or not? Because honestly, I haven't seen many of them reaching climax, most of them just die out in the mid. Then comes the concept of fairy tales or what we say 'fiction', where nothing is impossible!
But over time, if I've realized something, it is that there's no such term called fiction when it comes to reality! Its harsh, in-your-face-sarcastic, ironical and highly irrational. You can't expect what's coming up next, and how it's going to blow you. In the real life, the entire meaning of fiction ceases to exist. Conclusively, we writers, deal with harsh reality and write lively fictions, this job in itself is so ironical but, that's life ... — Mehek Bassi

I might think that equality has been achieved, there is no power relation going on in terms of class, race, or gender, I might just want to drink my latte and buy pretty shoes and write books about girls who marry, die, or go insane, then go get my nails done. — Lidia Yuknavitch

There comes a point when you can more or less count the number of books you're going to write before you die. — Kazuo Ishiguro

PREFACE TO THE PAPERBACK EDITION How much work did you do today that you will be proud of tomorrow? I don't mean just how you handled the big things, but also how you addressed the little, seemingly insignificant ones. Did you make progress on what matters most to you, or did you allow the buzz, busyness, and expectations of others to squelch your passion and focus? I've been asking these questions of others and myself each day for more than a decade, and they are the main reason I originally felt compelled to write Die Empty. Through my work I've encountered many teams of brilliant, sharp, amazing, talented people who have at some point "settled in" or begun coasting on past success. Unfortunately, — Todd Henry

How could I write about life when I'd never had a love affair or a baby or seen anybody die? — Sylvia Plath

You live and die two or three times making a movie. First, you write it, and the first pivotal moment comes when you can get it made. The second is in the process of making it, when the movie reveals itself to you, its flaws and its virtues. Then the most unnerving moment is when that movie is then launched into the world. It's like bringing your kid to the first day at school and somebody points out that it has bowlegs, it is cross-eyed, or it's gorgeous. You feel very exposed. — Guillermo Del Toro

You have two choices in life. You either die or do something with your time. You're going to be doing something - why not write? — James Lee Burke

If Shirley were not an indolent, a reckless, an ignorant being, she would take a pen at such moments, or at least while the recollection of such moments was yet fresh on her spirit. She would seize, she would fix the apparition, tell the vision revealed. Had she a little more of the organ of acquisitiveness in her head, a little more of the love of property in her nature, she would take a good-sized sheet of paper and write plainly out, in her own queer but clear and legible hand, the story that has been narrated, the song that has been sung to her, and thus possess what she was enabled to create. But indolent she is, reckless she is, and most ignorant; for she does not know her dreams are rare, her feelings peculiar. She does not know, has never known, and will die without knowing, the full value of that spring whose bright fresh bubbling in her heart keeps it green. — Charlotte Bronte

We must take arms each and every day, perhaps knowing that the battle cannot be entirely won, but fight we must, if only a gentle bout. The smallest effort to win means, at the end of each day, a sort of victory. Remember that pianist who said that if he did not pratice every day he would know, if he did not practice for two days, the critics would know, after three days, his audiences would know.
A variation of this is true for writers. Not that your style, whatever that is, would melt out of shape in those few days.
But what would happen is that the world would catch up with and try to sicken you. If you did not write every day, the poisons would accumulate and you would begin to die, or act crazy, or both. — Ray Bradbury

Yeah, I write Urban Fantasy, but its more like Die Hard or Indiana Jones with Fairies, Mummies and a Vampire who uses guns more than his teeth. — Kevin James Breaux

Why couldn't she have slid it under the door? he wondered. Why couldn't she have folded it? It looked just like any other note she would leave him, like, Could you try to fix the broken knocker? or I'll be back soon, don't worry. It was so strange to him that such a different kind of note - I had to do it for myself - could look exactly the same: trivial, mundane, nothing. He could have hated her for leaving it there in plain sight, and he could have hated her for the plainness of it, a message without adornment, without any small clue to indicate that yes, this is important, yes, this is the most painful note I've ever written, yes, I would sooner die than have to write this again. Where were the dried teardrops? Where was the tremor in the script? — Jonathan Safran Foer

Upon the decease [of] my wife, it is my Will and desire th[at] all the Slaves which I hold in [my] own right, shall receive their free[dom] ... The Negroes thus bound, are (by their Masters or Mistresses) to be taught to read and write; and to be brought up to some useful occupation, agreeably to the Laws of the Commonwealth of Virginia, providing for the support of Orphan and other poor Children. And I do hereby expressly forbid the Sale, or transportation out of the said Commonwealth, of any Slave I may die possessed of, under any pretence whatsoever. — George Washington

Maybe Laura's real problem came in admitting this: there was nothing new under the sun. To write a story would be, somehow deep down, to embrace her limits, to admit that, indeed, she would someday die - if not of a worm or a ceiling, then of something else. The very nature of a story admitted this reality. To be a writer was to say, yes, I am just another Murasaki, and it is quite possible that no one will remember my name. — L.L. Barkat

People disappear when they die. Their voice, their laughter, the warmth of their breath. Their flesh. Eventually their bones. All living memory of them ceases. This is both dreadful and natural. Yet for some there is an exception to this annihilation. For in the books they write they continue to exist. We can rediscover them. Their humor, their tone of voice, their moods. Through the written word they can anger you or make you happy. They can comfort you. They can perplex you. They can alter you. All this, even though they are dead. Like flies in amber, like corpses frozen in the ice, that which according to the laws of nature should pass away is, by the miracle of ink on paper, preserved. It is a kind of magic. — Diane Setterfield

Some Things, Say the Wise Ones Some things, say the wise ones who know everything, are not living. I say, you live your life your way and leave me alone. I have talked with the faint clouds in the sky when they are afraid of being left behind; I have said, Hurry, hurry! and they have said: thank you, we are hurrying. About cows, and starfish, and roses, there is no argument. They die, after all. But water is a question, so many living things in it, but what is it, itself, living or not? Oh, gleaming generosity, how can they write you out? As I think this I am sitting on the sand beside the harbor. I am holding in my hand small pieces of granite, pyrite, schist. Each one, just now, so thoroughly asleep. — Mary Oliver

There is absolutely no point in sitting down to write a book unless you feel that you must write that book, or else go mad, or die. — Robertson Davies

I write because I die again and again at the hands of a world that cannot have me or make me fit. I write because each poem is my reincarnation.
I write to remember the self that inherits me every time another self dies. I write because I cannot lie still. — Jennifer Militello

What did you write on here? 'Don't die'?"
"No, I wrote, 'Don't be an asshole!'"I headed for the house.
"On yours or mine?"
"On yours."
"Well, in that case, your magic isn't working. I'm still an asshole. — Ilona Andrews

It was either write or die for me. — Michael Hastings

I'm sick of reading a bunch of hand-wringing bullshit intended to please your circle of friends, or assuage one's guilt of some kind or another. Take a position, have a point of view and fucking live or die with the consequences or don't write. — Kenyon Farrow

I write as a function. Without it I would fall ill and die. It's as much a part of one as the liver or intestine, and just about as glamorous. — Charles Bukowski