Friday, March 30, 2012

Quotes

Here are some favorite quotes about writing.

"Sure, it's simple, writing for kids . . . Just as simple as bringing them up."
Ursula K. LeGuin

"You must write for children in the same way as you do for adults, only better."
Maxim Gorky

"Most new writers think it's easy to write for children, but it's not. You have to get in a beginning, middle and end, tell a great story, write well, not be condescending--all in a few pages."
Andrea Brown

"Easy-to-read is hard to write."
Pam Zollman

"Three Rules for Literary Success: 1. Read a lot. 2. Write a lot. 3. Read a lot more, write a lot more."
Robert Silverberg

"I have found that a story leaves a deeper impression when it is impossible to tell which side the author is on."
Leo Tolstoy

"Every writer I know has trouble writing."
Joseph Heller


And, just for Julie, who's struggling with this today:

"It is perfectly okay to write garbage--as long as you edit brilliantly."
C. J. Cherryh

"A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people."
Thomas Mann

“The first draft of anything is $#!%.”
Ernest Hemingway

3 comments:

Danielle Paige said...

These are awesome!

I generally keep a clean mouth but I bet I'd agree wholeheartedly with whatever that last one says, I'm working on accepting the 3rd to last :)

Scott said...

Danielle, I wouldn't usually substitute for Hemingway's word in a quotation, but so far this has been a family friendly "clean" language blog, and I didn't want to be the one to change that. I like his quote, though, and try to remember it when I look back at something I wrote and find myself thinking that I really should have spent my time doing something more useful, like cleaning up after the dog, especially since what she leaves behind doesn't smell half as bad as what I put on the page.

Julie Daines said...

Thanks Scott! Ernest Hemingway's is my favorite! But Leo Tolstoy's also resonated with me because I like my main characters to dig their own graves, and sometimes that makes them, to quote you, unlikable. :)