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.
You know C. S. Lewis, whom I greatly admire, said there’s no such thing as creative writing.
In Chinese and In English: Various Types of Mao Zedong's Writings
it is the law that was not part of my plan. It was not until we were writing JAMB that I picked law.
I approach writing as though it were a game that I play alone, in a room by myself
It is as easy to draw back a stone thrown with force from the hand, as to recall a word once spoken.
A great many people now reading and writing would be better employed keeping rabbits.
It is like writing history with lightning. And my only regret is that it is all so terribly true.
Times are bad. Children no longer obey their parents, and everyone is writing a book.