Grasp the subject, the words will follow.
– Cato the Elder
Category: Quotable
Quotable 135
The real joy of writing comes from surprising oneself.
– Alfred Kazin
Quotable 134
I try to create sympathy for my characters, then turn the monsters loose.
– Stephen King
Quotable 133
Essentially, a story expresses how and why life changes.
– Robert McKee
Quotable 132
Everybody can write; writers can’t do anything else.
– Mignon McLaughlin
Quotable 131
Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But since no one was listening, everything must be said again.
– André Gide
Quotable 130
Writing a story is like crossing a stream, now I’m on this rock, now I’m on this rock, now I’m on this rock.
– Ann Beattie
Quotable 129
It is better to write a bad first draft than to write no first draft at all.
– Will Shetterly
Quotable 128
High impact fiction simultaneously does two seemingly contradictory things: On the one hand it conjures highly detailed story worlds that are entirely unique to its authors. On the other hand, it portrays universal human experiences with which millions of readers can identify.
– Donald Maass
Quotable 127
Life goes on, and for the sake of verisimilitude and realism, you cannot possibly give the impression of an ending: you must let something hang. A cheap interpretation of that would be to say that you must always leave a chance for a sequel. People die, love dies, but life does not die, and so long as people live, stories must have life at the end.
– John O’Hara