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Good Writing

by DrDarko

Writing is an art, not a science. Still, some rules do exist. These quotes by famous writers offer some great advice on writing as a career.

Writing is quite reliable means for transmitting information or keeping historical records. While you might think that only in recent history, we started using writing for purposes that are more mundane, you will be mistaken.

The oldest known use of writing in China was for divination in the royal court. Yap, those ancient mandarins used writing to divine the future.

If we ever manage to decipher the oldest known writing (the Dispilio Tablet, carbon 14-dated to 5260 BC), we will probably discover that it does not represent annual tax report.

Good writing can be your path to success, wealth and fame. True masters of the pen gave excellent advice and inside information on achieving success with this great art. These thoughts and quotes offer great insight into the mind of great authors...

Writing - a mirror of the soul

"There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed."
Ernest Hemingway

"Good writing is like a windowpane."
George Orwell

"Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers."
Isaac Asimov

"Writing is an act of faith, not a trick of grammar."
E. B. White

"The art of writing is the art of discovering what you believe."
Gustave Flaubert

Financial success is not guaranteed

"The profession of book writing makes horse racing seem like a solid, stable business."
John Steinbeck

"All good writing is swimming under water and holding your breath."
F. Scott Fitzgerald

"The free-lance writer is a man who is paid per piece or per word or perhaps."
Robert Benchley

"Of all fatiguing, futile, empty trades, the worst, I suppose, is writing about writing."
Hilaire Belloc

Writing requires dedication

"I am a galley slave to pen and ink."
Honore de Balzac

"Nothing matters but the writing. There has been nothing else worthwhile... a stain upon the silence."
Samuel Beckett

"There's no such thing as perfect writing, just like there's no such thing as perfect despair."
Haruki Murakami

"However great a man's natural talent may be, the act of writing cannot be learned all at once."
Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Only failure in writing

Less can be more

"Substitute *damn* every time you're inclined to write *very*; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be."
Mark Twain

"I have made this letter longer, because I have not had the time to make it shorter."
Blaise Pascal

Remain unbiased

"When a man is in doubt about this or that in his writing, it will often guide him if he asks himself how it will tell a hundred years hence."
Samuel Butler

"Good critical writing is measured by the perception and evaluation of the subject; bad critical writing by the necessity of maintaining the professional standing of the critic."
Raymond Chandler

"Reviewing music or reviewing anything is a writing job. It's nice if you are experienced in the field you are writing about, but writing is what you are doing."
Virgil Thomson

"Research to me is as important or more important than the writing. It is the foundation upon which the book is built."
Leon Uris

Writing can be fun

In the end, not only that writing can be fun, in most cases, writing should be fun!

"Writing is the most fun you can have by yourself."
Terry Pratchett

"If you can't annoy somebody, there's little point in writing."
Kingsley Amis

Updated: 04/12/2012, DrDarko
 
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