“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”
– Ernest Hemingway
Does it ever feel that way sometimes?
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Tag Archives: literary quotes
Romantic Quotes – Les Miserables
Valentine’s Day may be over, but let’s extend it a few more days and talk about romantic literary quotes. Here’s one:
“To love or have loved, that is enough. Ask nothing further. There is no other pearl to be found in the dark folds of life.”
– Victor Hugo, Les Miserables
Here, Hugo is basically saying that finding love is the best experience of life, and if you’ve ever loved someone, then stop worrying about all of the other things you want to accomplish, because you’ve already achieved the best thing that life has to offer.
Is love the best thing life has to offer?
Personally, I’ve found and lost love, and I argue that fro yo with gummy bears is a more enjoyable life experience.
Fake It Till You Make It
“It’s none of their business that you have to learn how to write. Let them think you were born that way.”
– Ernest Hemingway
No commentary necessary. This one speaks for itself.
Elmore Leonard – Quote About Writing
“I try to leave out the parts the people skip.”
– Elmore Leonard
Among your many works, Elmore, thank you for bringing us Justified. So sad this is the last season.
Meg Rosoff on “Your Writing Voice
Your writing voice is the deepest possible reflection of who you are. The job of your voice is not to seduce or flatter or make well-shaped sentences. In your voice, your readers should be able to hear the contents of your mind, your heart, your soul.
– Meg Rosoff, Novelist, Author of How I Live Now
True or false? Discuss.
Don’t Forget to Bring a Towel…
“A towel, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapors; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (such a mind-boggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can’t see it, it can’t see you); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
If you haven’t read it yet, you really should.
Literary Quote – Mark Twain
“Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.”
― Mark Twain
Not sure I have anything profound to say about this one, other than I generally find that in life, one often meets many people who feel they have to knock others down just to make themselves look good in comparison. Why do people feel the need to do that? I don’t know.
This quote can definitely apply to writing. Show of hands – how many of you have been laughed out of the room after mentioning you’re working on a novel?
It’s ok. The people who haven’t been bitten by the writing bug will never understand. Just hang out and commiserate with other writing bug bite sufferers.
Steven King – Quote from On Writing
“Writing fiction, especially a long work of fiction can be difficult, lonely job; it’s like crossing the Atlantic Ocean in a bathtub. There’s plenty of opportunity for self-doubt.”
― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
Do you doubt yourself while you’re writing? I know I do. Is that a good thing? Perhaps some of the junkiest books come from folks who believe that nothing but rainbows comes out of their pen? Perhaps some of the best writing comes from people who have toiled away, questioning and self-debating every single, solitary last word choice?
What say you, readers?
George R.R. Martin on Reading
“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, said Jojen. The man who never reads lives only one.”
– George R.R. Martin, A Dance With Dragons
Can the next season of Game of Thrones just start already?
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