Writing Philosophy Quotes & Sayings

Writers don't suffer from insanity, they depend upon it! — Avijeet Das

I left my novels for better times, when I could dedicate the energy and enjoy the inspiration I feel while planning them; like the most delicious cherries on a cake one left for later so they can be savored to the utmost. — Sahara Sanders

When I told my teachers I wanted to be a writer, alot of them encouraged me to lower my expectations and to be more realistic. So I rode away on my magical, winged horse, spraying faerie dust behind me, and laughing manically as I went. — M.E. Vaughan

I don't know whether I can say that having a career in philosophy has turned out as I imagined, since in many ways I had little idea of what such a life would be like. But philosophy is still tremendously exciting to me, and the opportunity to think, and talk, and write about these issues has been wonderful. — Hilary Kornblith

Gardening is really an extended form of reading, of history and philosophy. The garden itself has become like writing a book. I walk around and walk around. Apparently people often see me standing there and they wave to me and I don't see them because I am reading the landscape. — Jamaica Kincaid

My Irish Catholic mother loved romantic movies, provided they ended with a kiss before the screen went dark. If things went any further than that, she'd complain, Why can't they leave something to the imagination? I sort of subscribe to her philosophy when it comes to writing sex. — Catherine Brady

The statement 'There is nothing more American than an Indian' happens to be a multidimensional paradox. Try and not say too many of those. That might open your mind to ideas that could cause sanity point loss. — Charles Slagle

He [Wordsworth] invited his readers to abandon their usual perspective and to consider for a time how the world might look through other eyes, to shuttle between the human and the natural perspective. Why might this be interesting, or even inspiring? Perhaps because unhappiness can stem from only having one perspective to play with. — Alain De Botton

The balance between literature and philosophy in Schopenhauer and Nietzsche is different from that struck in the novella, but, as Mann clearly pointed out in his writings about both thinkers, both modes are present. — Philip Kitcher

[Satan] has hundreds of agents writing pornographic literature and producing sex movies to pollute [the mind]. He has intellectuals in high positions teaching a hedonistic and permissive philosophy ... They lack an anchor for their real self. — Billy Graham

I adhere to the philosophy, "I don't care who writes the laws, let me write the songs." — Chuck D

Painting a picture is writing a poem with paint. — Debasish Mridha

I begin my life. I live again. I meet a young girl called Valeria. She smiles easily. She laughs tender sounds that pull at my heart. I'm too young to be profound but she makes me feel so safe. So cherished. I am thirty years old. I bump into a woman I knew when she was a girl. Valeria looks annoyed to see me. She lives in the future. Where the world is turning. I live within the past. Where the people are trapped and screaming and alone. I live within the past when Valeria and I were in love. She's waiting for the cab to come, her foot tapping against the sidewalk. Her eyes glancing at her watch every few minutes. I'm eager to reunite our lives through some kind of friendship. I'm so eager to know her again, as she was when she was a child. But Valeria lives within the future. I live within the past. Have the two ever gotten along? Have they ever even met? — F.K. Preston

A good list of questions to ask your advisor will include the following: Where will my money be held? Right answer: Somewhere else! Are you a broker? Right answer: No! Are you a dually registered advisor? Right answer: No! Do you or any affiliate have proprietary investments of any kind? Right answer: No! How are you compensated? Right answer: Total disclosure in writing and never make commissions on any investment product. What are the credentials of you and/or your team? Right answer: If planning is involved, a CFP is ideal to have on the team. What is your planning and investment management approach? Right answer: The firm should follow a coherent philosophy rather than a bunch of different strategies (unprincipled) and should follow an approach that does not involve market timing or active trading. — Peter Mallouk

Be a great writer when you write your life's song. — Debasish Mridha

Although selfhood depends causally upon the existence of the brain, it amounts to something far more than the brain. This something is vague and intangible, and might best be described, I think, as a semi-fictional narrative that is in constant need of writing, editing, and preserving. — Neel Burton

I studied philosophy, religious studies, and English. My training was writing four full-length novels and hiring an editor to tear them apart. I had enough money to do that, and then rewriting and rewriting and rewriting. — Ted Dekker

One day, I decided I was going to write books forever. — Carla H. Krueger

I enjoy writing historical fiction because it allows me to live more lives than just this one. — Karen A. Chase

As a writer of philosophy, it's good to ask oneself, 'Will I still believe this a week from now, or months, or even years? — Criss Jami

Nothing was ever in tune. People just blindly grabbed at whatever there was: communism, health foods, zen, surfing, ballet, hypnotism, group encounters, orgies, biking, herbs, Catholicism, weight-lifting, travel, withdrawal, vegetarianism, India, painting, writing, sculpting, composing, conducting, backpacking, yoga, copulating, gambling, drinking, hanging around, frozen yogurt, Beethoven, Back, Buddha, Christ, TM, H, carrot juice, suicide, handmade suits, jet travel, New York City, and then it all evaporated and fell apart. People had to find things to do while waiting to die. I guess it was nice to have a choice. — Charles Bukowski

My philosophy is as simple as ever - smoking, drinking, moderate sexual intercourse on a diminishing scale, reading and writing (not arithmetic). I have a selfish absorption in the well-being and achievement of Noel Coward. — Noel Coward

It is all very well for you to write simply and the simpler the better. But do not start to think so damned simply. Know how complicated it is and then state it simply. — Ernest Hemingway,

Writers are like supreme beings. We can create worlds in a matter of days and we can destroy them just as fast. — Linda Nelson

Four years ago the clocks started turning back. I open my eyes and see nothing. I feel nothing below or above me. I feel the absence of things. The absence of my flesh, my bones, my body, my mind. All that is left is awareness. I see nothing but the absence of colour. It's not a black darkness. It's simply nothing. The interior of a black hole. I recall news of a black hole lingering along the edges of our solar system. All that time ago. Four years ago. When the clocks started turning back. I hear nothing. Until there is a something. A small thing. A voice. I listen. There are more voices. The sounds are human. How long has it been since I've heard a human? The sounds scratch along my now present attention. They carve into my hearing. They are horrid, wretched things. Voices screaming. Growing loud and desperate. How many voices? Billions. This is the birth of our species. We are born screaming. It's all we know to do. We have screamed for eternity. Within this empty space. — F.K. Preston

Inhale sky. Exhale stars. — Vytautaseneyevich

Writing is the spectrum through which the chaos of life can be seen, studied and understood. — Stewart Stafford

I should have mentioned before, that, in the autumn of the preceding year, I had form'd most of my ingenious acquaintance into a club of mutual improvement, which we called the JUNTO; we met on Friday evenings. The rules that I drew up required that every member, in his turn, should produce one or more queries on any point of Morals, Politics, or Natural Philosophy, to be discuss'd by the company; and once in three months produce and read an essay of his own writing, on any subject he pleased. Our debates were to be under the direction of a president, and to be conducted in the sincere spirit of inquiry after truth, without fondness for dispute, or desire of victory; and, to prevent warmth, all expressions of positiveness in opinions, or direct contradiction, were after some time made contraband, and prohibited under small pecuniary penalties. — Benjamin Franklin

Writing is turning life's worst moments into money. — J.P. Donleavy

When a person sets out to learn from others and not to teach others he becomes a true writer. — Carla H. Krueger

I die a little everyday, in trying to revive what I lost yesterday! — Jasleen Kaur Gumber

Like a bird, my thoughts were flying away so I became a writer to cage my thoughts with paper and pen. You should not call me a writer but rather a catcher of thoughts. — Debasish Mridha

I am writing something very simple that will change you and change the world. — Debasish Mridha

Jenny Marzen made millions of dollars, as opposed to nickels, by writing novels that got seriously reviewed while selling big. Amy had skimmed her first one, a mildly clever thing about a philosophy professor who discovers her husband is cheating on her with one of her grad students, and who, while feigning ignorance of the affair, drives the girl mad with increasingly brutal critiques and research tasks, at one point banishing her to Beirut, first to learn fluent Arabic and then to read Avicenna's Al-Qanun fi al-Tibb, housed in the American University. This was, Amy thought, a showoffy detail that hinted at Marzen's impressive erudition but was probably arrived at within five Googling minutes. — Jincy Willett

I have always taken as the standard of the mode of teaching and writing, not the abstract, particular, professional philosopher, but universal man, that I have regarded man as the criterion of truth, and not this or that founder of a system, and have from the first placed the highest excellence of the philosopher in this, that he abstains, both as a man and as an author, from the ostentation of philosophy, i. e., that he is a philosopher only in reality, not formally, that he is a quiet philosopher, not a loud and still less a brawling one. — Ludwig Feuerbach

We can help the next generation, with the stories we write today. — Lailah Gifty Akita

A writer of any merit does not worry about being accepted everywhere. He must write to inspire, to change for the better or to challenge the status quo! — Avijeet Das

My writings are the mirror of my soul and the dance of my mind. — Debasish Mridha

Nothing that happens is meant to happen or not meant to happen. The 'meant' is the story we tell ourselves that allows us to make sense of what is fundamentally senseless. Does this make our lives less important? Only if that's the story you want to tell yourself. Where do the stories end? They don't. It's stories all the way down. And all the way up. — Billy Marshall Stoneking

My philosophy on writing books is that if you learn only one new thing, or even get a new take on something you already know, it's worth it. — James Scott Bell

I'm proud to be a writer. I'm doing the job all my heroes did. — Carla H. Krueger

Life always has some surprises up its sleeve! — Avijeet Das

Sometimes we don't know where we are going until we get there. — Jacqueline Simon Gunn

Writing is a disease of the mind, which is expressed through a pen. — Debasish Mridha

Violence can read like poetry. You just have to describe the act as if you're in love with the way your characters bleed. — F.K. Preston

When writing a book what is more important? Grammar and spelling or telling a great story? I know which I would choose. — Samuel Colbran

[Eugene Smith] was always writing these diatribes about truth, and how he wanted to tell the truth, the truth, the truth. It was a real rebel position. It was kind of like a teenager's position: why can't things be like they should be? Why can't I do what I want? I latched on to that philosophy. One day I snapped, hey, you know, I know a story that no one's ever told, never seen, and I've lived it. It's my own story and my friends' story. — Larry Clark

Writing is a lonely business, which if allowed publicity and socializing it might deteriorate. Supportive people understand the need of a writer to withdraw to the solitude of oneself. — Gloria D. Gonsalves

I want to question societal norms, encourage people to think in new ways. — Carla H. Krueger

Passion is a deep love for sacred activity. — Lailah Gifty Akita

When I had my girls, I knew what magic felt like for the first time. I had created people who didn't exist before. Now I write for the same reason. Creating people and their life's stories through my writing is as close to magic as I'll ever get again. — Dori Ann Dupre

I am writing a manifesto and there's nothing I want, and yet I'm saying certain things, and in principle I am against manifestos, as I am against principles. — Tristan Tzara

The strangest thing about demons is that they come to love you. As much as they try to murder the very core of you when you first meet, they become your closest companions. I never asked for this devil on my shoulder. But my eyes are burning and I'm not alone. If you see a red gaze at midheaven, look away. It's exactly as they say: hell is a hungry place. — F.K. Preston

Miranda Lambert is actually mixing the singer-songwriter philosophy with the commercial country [mindset]. And I find it just inspiring. My hat's off completely, because she's pulling it off, and I couldn't figure out a way to do it. — Allison Moorer

There are no humans left. I should not be alone. I can't help but wonder that. There were so many of us living. But time started growing young four years ago. It isn't four years anymore. It's a number I wouldn't even be able to say. It feels like four years. It's trapped in my tender memory as four years. It's been an age. Multiple ages. It's been lifetimes; every single lifetime that used to exist. I remember my mother screaming. I recall the doctors naming me as nurses wiped away her blood and covered her face with white. The end of the play. It's been so long. Why am I alone? — F.K. Preston

The very hope of experimental philosophy, its expectation of constructing the sciences into a true philosophy of nature, is basedon induction, or, if you please, the a priori presumption, that physical causation is universal; that the constitution of nature is written in its actual manifestations, and needs only to be deciphered by experimental and inductive research; that it is not a latent invisible writing, to be brought out by the magic of mental anticipation or metaphysical mediation. — Chauncey Wright

I read 'The Conspiracy Against the Human Race' and found it incredibly powerful writing. For me as a reader, it was less impactful as philosophy than as one writer's ultimate confessional: an absolute horror story, where the self is the monster. — Nic Pizzolatto

I'm sure there's some philosophy that says one of the best ways to deal with any of your problems is to take a deep breath and step away from them for a while, writing does this for me. — Christopher Paul Curtis

May the words ever flow! — Anna Dobritt

One of the notebooks was for musings and pep talks. ... The other notebooks were for writing out the novel the way authors had done for centuries. — Gail Godwin

And you must not worry about me. You must follow your dreams. You have your life ahead of you. I am just a wanderer passing by. — Avijeet Das

The freedom of an unscheduled afternoon brought confusion rather than joy. Julius had always been focused. When he was not seeing patients, other important projects and activities-writing, teaching, tennis, research-clamored for his attention. But today nothing seemed important. He suspected that nothing had ever been important, that his mind had arbitrarily imbued projects with importance and then cunningly covered its traces. Today he saw through the ruse of a lifetime. Today there was nothing important to do, and he ambled aimlessly down Union Street. — Irvin D. Yalom

You can swap the message around, and whatever the particular norm is, or whatever the particular message is, when you put your pet-peeve message before story, odds are you are going to bore the shit out of your reader. — Larry Correia

Well, for instance, why does everything always have to be written from the point of view of a human being? Why not write from the point of view of a cat? Or a tree? — Austin Scott Collins

Poetic license is not a license to scribe recklessly. — C. Kennedy

Insisting that his writing did not offer a philosophy of life, Hardy claims that each poem was an 'impression', intensely subjective and evanescent. — Geoffrey Harvey

I still lack a political, religious, and philosophical world view. I change it every month, so I'll have to limit myself to the description of how my heroes love, marry, give birth, die, and how they speak. — Anton Chekhov

(on A History of Western Philosophy) I was sometimes accused by reviewers of writing not a true history but a biased account of the events that I arbitrarily chose to write of. But to my mind, a man without a bias cannot write interesting history - if, indeed, such man exists. — Bertrand Russell

This is the Unix philosophy: Write programs that do one thing and do it well. Write programs to work together. Write programs to handle text streams, because that is a universal interface. — Douglas McIlroy

A hammer made of deadlines is the surest tool for crushing writer's block. — Ryan Lilly

The arrogance that says analysing the relationship between reasons and causes is more important than writing a philosophy of shyness or sadness or friendship drives me nuts. I can't accept that. — Alain De Botton

If you don't make time for writing, writing won't make time for you. — Sandra Elaine Scott

Writing is an incurable psychological disease which only gets worse with writing. — Debasish Mridha

In the minds of some people, writing is one thing, but thinking is quite another. If they define writing as spelling, the production of sentences with random meanings, and punctuation, then they might have a case. But who would accept such a definition? Writing is the production of meaning. Writing is thinking. — George Hillocks Jr.

To take a gloomy view of life is not part of my philosophy; to laugh at the idiocies of my fellow creatures is. However, at this particular moment I cannot find so much to laugh at as I would like. — Noel Coward

Don't write to sell, write to tell. — Jonas Eriksson

Our lives are a novel being written. We are its author. Every action we encounter and every person we meet has a role and a place in our ultimate story. It is in our control to decide the level of how, who and what impacts us and how large a role we decide to assign each. — Mark W. Boyer

It's a sort of philosophy you cook up for yourself. You probably write things the same as everybody else, but it's your own personal way of saying things. — Jim Capaldi

When I'm not writing music, I'm playing guitar, or reading philosophy. So all I have left is just an hour or two for Claudia Schiffer. — Richard Pinhas

I do not turn to history to draw from it an easy lesson of hope, but to confront my experience with that of others, to acquire something I might call universal compassion, and also a sense of responsibility, responsibility for the state of my conscience. — Zbigniew Herbert

For me, writing is immortality. It is wisdom. It is never-ending. — Alecia Stone

If you're a writer, write. And always strive for excellence. — Linda W. Yezak

The page is to the story as the seed is to the flower. — Bankei Yotaku

Our stories must be written, shared and communicated. — Lailah Gifty Akita

I wish to continue reading. — Lailah Gifty Akita

It's very fluid, this space between philosophy and literature, and that's something that resonates for me. — Tom McCarthy

Jacques Derrida is a very important thinker and philosopher who has made serious contributions to both philosophy and literary criticism. Roland Barthes is the one I feel most affinity for, and Michel Foucault, well, his writing influenced my novel, 'Middlesex.' — Jeffrey Eugenides

In writing, as in life, its not the big words that are the problem its the little minds that read them. — Rassool Jibraeel Snyman

My creativity keeps me from starving. Humanity keeps my life mundane. Loving secures my love for life, but my imagination keeps me sane. — F.K. Preston

If your writing fails to move the emotional needle, you are not reaching your readers. — Jack R. Cotner

If your life is worth thinking about,it is worth writing about. — Robin S. Sharma

Poetry is more than a form of art. It's a vibration and a pulsing heart. Whether it's sour or whether it's sweet. It can give you strength no one can defeat — Stanley Victor Paskavich

I am writing just to inspire you, encourage you, empower you, and give you hope when you are fighting your life's battle. — Debasish Mridha

Let those who want to save the world if you can get to see it clear and as a whole. Then any part you make will represent the whole if it's made truly. The thing to do is work and learn to make it. — Ernest Hemingway,

When you are writing you're creating beauty for mind. — Debasish Mridha

Discipline allows magic. To be a writer is to be the very best of assassins. You do not sit down and write every day to force the Muse to show up. You get into the habit of writing every day so that when she shows up, you have the maximum chance of catching her, bashing her on the head, and squeezing every last drop out of that bitch. — Lili St. Crow

When you have something meaningful to say, you lose your desire for much grammar; for only in the incompetence of words does one seek the redeeming power of vocabulary. — King Samuel Benson

If you would be a writer, first be a reader. Only through the assimilation of ideas, thoughts and philosophies can one begin to focus his own ideas, thoughts and philosophies. — Allan W. Eckert

Writing is the dragon that lives underneath my floorboards. The one I incessantly feed for fear it may turn and devour my ass. Writing is the friend who doesn't return my phone calls; the itch I'm unable to scratch; a dinner invitation from a cannibal; elevator music for a narcoleptic. Writing is the hope of lifting all boats by pissing in the ocean. Writing isn't something that makes me happy like a good cup of coffee. It's just something I do because not writing, as I've found, is so much worse. — Quentin R. Bufogle

Writer's groups work for some new writers, not for others. I was never cut out for a writer's group. So much depends on the people in it. What are they criticizing about your work? Grammar, syntax, plot holes? Or are they criticizing your personal style, your world view and your personal philosophy? If they're criticizing the latter, it's not a good group for you, no matter what support you might think you're getting from it. Your style, your perspective, and your philosophy of life are the main things you have to sell; they are what make you different, and you shouldn't
in fact you can't
change them. — Dean Koontz