Writer's Digest Quotes & Sayings

The writer must have a good imagination to begin with, but the imagination has to be muscular, which means it must be exercised in a disciplined way, day in and day out, by writing, failing, succeeding and revising.
[The Writer's Digest Interview: Stephen King & Jerry B. Jenkins (Jessica Strawser, Writer's Digest, May/June 2009)] — Stephen King

The novel was simple, heartwarming, painful, and lovely, all in perfect doses." -Writer's Digest Review of Emily Nelson's The Locket — Emily Nelson

I'll tell you a thing that will shock you. It will certainly shock the readers of Writer's Digest. What I often do nowadays when I have to, say, describe a room, is to take a page of a dictionary, any page at all, and see if with the words suggested by that one page in the dictionary I can build up a room, build up a scene. ... I even did it in a novel I wrote called MF. There's a description of a hotel vestibule whose properties are derived from Page 167 in R.J. Wilkinson's Malay-English Dictionary. Nobody has noticed. ... As most things in life are arbitrary anyway, you're not doing anything naughty, you're really normally doing what nature does, you're just making an entity out of the elements. I do recommend it to young writers. — Anthony Burgess

My philosophy has always been if I can learn just one thing from an article or book on writing, it's worth it. — Writer's Digest Books

Yet should there hover in their restless heads
One thought, one grace, one wonder at the least,
Which into words no virtue can digest. — Christopher Marlowe

You have to understand that people feel threatened by a writer. It's very curious. He knows something they don't know. He knows how to write, and that's a subtle, disturbing quality he has. Some directors without even knowing it, resent the writer in the same way Bob Hope might resent the fact he ain't funny without twelve guys writing the jokes. The director knows the script he is carrying around on the set every day was written by someone, and that's just not something that all directors easily digest. — Ernest Lehman

I don't believe in being serious about anything. I think life is too serious to be taken seriously.
[Writer's Digest Interview (Robert Jacobs, Writer's Digest, February 1976)] — Ray Bradbury

About novel Imperfect Birds by Anne Lamott.
Q: What does the title "Imperfect Birds" mean?
It's a line from a poem by Rumi. The line is "Each must enter the nest made by the other imperfect birds", and it's really about how these kind of scraggly, raggedy nests that are our lives are the sanctuary for other people to step into, and that if you want to see the divine, you really step into the absolute ordinary. When you're at your absolutely most lost and dejected ... where do you go? You go to the nests left by other imperfect birds, you find other people who've gone through it. You find the few people you can talk to about it.
from Writer's Digest May/June 2010 — Anne Lamott

I would advise anyone who aspires to a writing career that before developing his talent he would be wise to develop a thick hide.
[Writer's Digest, September 1961] — Harper Lee

I always send new writers to 'Writer's Digest Books' line-up of how-to books. I read them all when I was starting out, and they were very helpful. — Gail Z. Martin