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.
I have not skill
From such a sharp and waspish word as "No"
To pluck the sting.
My words fly up, my thoughts remain below:
Words without thoughts never to heaven go.
His very words are a fantastical banquet, just so many strange dishes.
But words are words; I never yet did hear
That the bruis'd heart was pierced through the ear.
Words are grown so false, I am loath to prove reason with them.
For words are wise men's counters—they do but reckon by them—but they are the money of fools.