"I took five years on the first volume, five years on the second volume, and ten years on the third volume."

Writing, First, Years

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"I took five years on the first volume, five years on the second volume, and ten years on the third volume."

Exlpore more Writing quotes

"It just happens to be the way that I'm made. I have to write things down to feel I fully comprehend them."

Haruki Murakami, Japanese Writer

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"A writer's primary goal is to make sense. The bookstore's is to make cents."

Mokokoma Mokhonoana, South African Philosopher

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"A writer's duty is to draw a picture that expresses more inner beauty, deeper anxiety, and more complex tragedy than a real character ever can."

Debasish Mridha, American Author

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"Remember Stephen King's First Rule of Writers and Agents, learned by bitter personal experience: You don't need one until you're making enough for someone to steal ... and if you're making that much, you'll be able to take your pick of good agents."

Stephen King, American Author

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"Nothing stinks like a pile of unpublished writing."

Sylvia Plath, American Poet

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"Silence fell like a hammer made of feathers. It left holes in the shape of the sound of the sea."

Terry Pratchett, English Author

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"Write out of love. Your piece will finish itself."

A. D. Posey, American Poet

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"At the inauguration of each sentence, the writer commences with an optimistic sense of curiosity. Similar to an inquisitive explorer, a writer begins each thoughtful decree with an appreciative sense of the unknown and ends with a reverent regard for the unanswerable. Repeating this instigating act of discovery by placing a combination of sentences down on paper creates a unique verdict. The writer's compilation of pronouncements expresses their interpretation of life. Replicating this creative endeavor in the futile effort to say it all imitates the revolving mystery of life where physical reality and mysterious forces of nature operate upon humankind."

Kilroy J. Oldster, American Author

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"One of the really bad things you can do to your writing is to dress up the vocabulary, looking for long words because you're maybe a little bit ashamed of your short ones. This is like dressing up a household pet in evening clothes. The pet is embarrassed and the person who committed this act of premeditated cuteness should be even more embarrassed."

Stephen King, American Author

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"One of my rules is never explain. A writer is a lot like a magician, if you explain how the trick works then a lot of the magic turns mundane."

Laurell K. Hamilton, American Writer

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Explore more quotes by Shelby Foote

"I've never shown anybody a draft of anything."

Writing

"And I really do think that the difficulty of research makes it more real to you than punching a thing to find out how many men were killed at this particular action."

Man

"I think making mistakes and discovering them for yourself is of great value, but to have someone else to point out your mistakes is a shortcut of the process."

Mistake

"Most of my inspiration, if that's the word, came from books themselves."

Inspirational

"I took five years on the first volume, five years on the second volume, and ten years on the third volume."

Writing

"Shiloh is a wonderfully dramatic battle. The leader of one side is killed, and the other one is going on to glory, and it was the first great battle. It lasted two days."

Leadership

"Getting close to books, and spending time by myself, I was obliged to think about things I would never have thought about if I was busy romping around with a brother and sister."

Time

"I don't want anything to do with anything mechanical between me and the paper, including a typewriter, and I don't even want a fountain pen between me and the paper."

Writing

"My second book, Follow Me Down had some success, got good critical notices, went into a second printing and things like that, but Shiloh was by far the most successful of those first five novels."

Success

"If you want to study writing, read Dickens. That's how to study writing, or Faulkner, or D.H. Lawrence, or John Keats. They can teach you everything you need to know about writing."

Writing