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The first person you should think of pleasing, in writing a book, is yourself. If you can amuse yourself for the length of time it takes to write a book, the publishers and the readers can and will follow.

— Patricia Highsmith Plotting and Writing Suspense Fiction (1966)

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Writing

More quotes by Patricia Highsmith

I don’t want to know movie directors.

Patricia Highsmith interview", Sight & Sound (1988)

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Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.

Francis Bacon Meditationes sacræ (1597)

Strength of creative writing lies in the skill of handling words and articulating artistic expression of feelings.”

Suman Pokhrel

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

Robert Benchley

Three sleepless nights I passed in sounding on,
Through words and things, a dim and perilous way.

William Wordsworth Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed (1919)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Patricia Highsmith (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.