Writing Quotes
The page is led by Shakespeare, then William Zinsser, the author of On Writing Well, followed by Horace and Orwell. Three old sources are worth knowing: Bacon’s Meditationes Sacræ (1597) says reading makes a full man, conference a ready man and writing an exact man; Thoreau’s journal for 1838 says it is vain to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live; and Horace’s Ars Poetica is the source for the idea that the writer wins by mixing profit with pleasure.
“Writing is like sex. First you do it for love, then for your friends, then for money” is credited to Virginia Woolf and flagged misattributed. The notes quote an anecdote from a Tyrol coffee-house in which someone else says something similar. Two more flagged lines are credited to Cicero and to Menander.
"Hope is definitely to be found in my writing now. There is resilience—we will not give up."
“I like writing as a voluntary activity; the main thing I’m good at is civil service.”
"Writing as well as I possibly can is a creed of my routine everyday life."
“Writing is something that identifies me in the society and carries my identity.”
Of writing well be sure the secret lies
In wisdom: therefore study to be wise.
May I really say it! All truths are bloody truths to me—take a look at my previous writings.
To have good sense, is the first principle and fountain of writing well.
I don't agree with any ideas he puts forth in his writing, but that is neither here nor there.
I was really, really bad at writing parsers. I still am really bad at writing parsers.
As a writer, I see myself more as a communicator. For me, writing is the best part of my career.