"A writer must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid."

Writing, Writer

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"A writer must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid."

Exlpore more Writing quotes

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

Mokokoma Mokhonoana, South African Philosopher

Writing, Truth, Power, Wisdom, Life

"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

Writing, Writer, Duty, Beauty, Anxiety

"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

Writing, Truth, Wisdom, Power, Today

"Nothing stinks like a pile of unpublished writing."

Sylvia Plath, American Poet

Writing, Nothing

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

Terry Pratchett, English Author

Writing, Truth, Happiness, Today, Wisdom

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

A. D. Posey, American Poet

Writing, Love, Creativity, Art

"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

Writing, Curiosity, Discovery, Life

"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

Writing, Simplicity, Style, Truth

"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

Writing, Magic, Rules

"E.L. Doctorow said once said that 'Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.' You don't have to see where you're going, you don't have to see your destination or everything you will pass along the way. You just have to see two or three feet ahead of you. This is right up there with the best advice on writing, or life, I have ever heard."

Anne Lamott, American Author

Writing, Life, Journey, Advice

Explore more quotes by William Faulkner

"He had a word, too. Love, he called it. But I had been used to words for a long time. I knew that that word was like the others: just a shape to fill a lack; that when the right time came, you wouldn't need a word for that anymore than for pride or fear."

Language

"Get it down. Take chances. It may be bad, but it's the only way you can do anything good."

Creation

"Women do have an affinity for evil, for believing that no woman is to be trusted, but that some men are too innocent to protect themselves."

Gender

"It's a shame that the only thing a man can do for eight hours a day is work. He can't eat for eight hours; he can't drink for eight hours; he can't make love for eight hours. The only thing a man can do for eight hours is work."

Attitude

"Time, the spaces of light and dark, had long since lost orderliness."

Existence

"What matters is at the end of life, when you're about to pass into oblivion, that you've at least scratched 'Kilroy was here,' on the last wall of the universe."

Existence

"Read, read, read. Read everything -- trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You'll absorb it.Then write. If it's good, you'll find out. If it's not, throw it out of the window."

Writing

"Fear is the most damnable damaging thing to human personality in the whole world."

Fear

"If a story is in you, it has to come out."

Writing

"It begins with a character, usually, and once he stands up on his feet and begins to move, all I can do is trot along behind him with a paper and pencil trying to keep up long enough to put down what he says and does."

Writing