I write one page of masterpiece to ninety-one pages of shit. I try to put the shit in the wastebasket.
– Ernest Hemingway
Category: Quotable
Quotable 74
A true poet does not bother to be poetical. Nor does a nursery gardener scent his roses.
– Jean Cocteau
Quotable 73
Writers are not mere copyists of language; they are polishers, embellishers, perfecters. They spend hours getting the timing right – so that what they write sounds completely unrehearsed.
– Louis Menand
Quotable 72
In nearly all good fiction, the basic – all but inescapable – plot form is this: A central character wants something, goes after it despite opposition (perhaps including his own doubts), and so arrives at a win, lose, or draw.
– John Gardner
Quotable 71
If you accept – and I do – that freedom of speech is important, then you are going to have to defend the indefensible. That means you are going to be defending the right of people to read, or to write, or to say, what you don’t say or like or want said.
– Neil Gaiman
Quotable 70
Science fiction is important because it fights the natural notion that there’s something permanent about things the way they are right now.
– Isaac Asimov
Quotable 69
Advice to young writers who want to get ahead without annoying delays: don’t write about Man, write about a man.
– E. B. White
Quotable 68
Writing saved me from the sin and inconvenience of violence.
– Alice Walker
Quotable 67
The main rule of writing is that if you do it with enough assurance and confidence, you’re allowed to do whatever you like.
– Neil Gaiman
Quotable 66
The function of science fiction is not always to predict the future but sometimes to prevent it.
– Frank Herbert