University Writing

Writing is an odd thing to do. You turn your back on the real world and favor an invisible world you invent. You have to search deep in your inner life. I hear things in a kinesthetic way. I tap into a rhythm of language to portray what I feel. MARY GORDON

Writing teaches us our mysteries. MARIE DE L'INCARNATION

I shall live badly if I do not write, and I shall write badly if I do not live. FRANCOISE SAGAN

A room without books is like a body without a soul. CICERO

What's so hard about the first sentence is that you're stuck with it. Everything else is going to flow out of that sentence. And by the time you've laid down the first two sentences, your options are all gone. JOAN DIDION

Writing is so difficult that I often feel that writers, having had their hell on earth, will escape all punishment hereafter. JESSAMYN WEST

Anyone who wishes to become a good writer should endeavor, before he allows himself to be tempted by the more showy qualities, to be direct, simple, brief, vigorous, and lucid. HW FOWLER

It is not sufficient to know what one ought to say, but one must also know how to say it. ARISTOTLE

Good writers are those who keep the language efficient. That is to say, keep it accurate, keep it clear. EZRA POUND

I'm a bit like a sponge. When I'm not writing I absorb life like water. When I write I squeeze the sponge a little -- and out comes, not water but ink. GEORGES SIMENON

Unless one is a genius, it is best to aim at being intelligible. ANTHONY HOPE HAWKINS

Have something to say, and say it as clearly as you can. That is the secret of style. MATTHEW ARNOLD

The secret of good writing is to say an old thing a new way or to say a new thing an old way. RICHARD HARDING DAVIS

I love being a writer. What I can't stand is the paperwork. PETER DE VRIES

Everything that can be thought at all can be thought clearly. Everything that can be said can be said clearly. LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN

There are days when the result is so bad that no fewer than five revisions are required. In contrast, when I'm greatly inspired, only four revisions are needed. JOHN KENNETH GALBRAITH

I always write a thing first and think about it afterward, which is not a bad procedure because the easiest way to have consequential thoughts is to start putting them down. EB WHITE

There is such an animal as a nonstylist, only they're not writers -- they're typists. TRUMAN CAPOTE

I have performed the necessary butchery. Here is the bleeding corpse. HENRY JAMES, comment following a request to cut three lines from a 5,000-word article

Usage is the only test. I prefer a phrase that is easy and unaffected to a phrase that is grammatical. W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM

It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations. WINSTON CHURCHILL

If we had to say what writing is, we would have to define it essentially as an act of courage. CYNTHIA OZICK

The author must keep his mouth shut when his work starts to speak. FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE

I blame myself for not often enough seeing the extraordinary in the ordinary. Somewhere in his journals, Dostoyevsky remarks that a writer can begin anywhere, at the most commonplace thing, scratch around in it long enough, pry and dig away long enough, and lo! soon he will hit upon the marvelous. SAUL BELLOW

I almost always urge people to write in the first person. . . Writing is an act of ego and you might as well admit it. WILLIAM ZINSSER

A writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people. THOMAS MANN

By asking students to stick to researching the known, we teach them to fear the unknown. ROBERT DAVIS and MARK SHADLE

The longer I write, the more important I believe it is to write the first draft as fast as possible. In drafting, I push myself so I am at the edge of discomfort. . . Later, it will be time for consideration and reconsideration, slow, careful revision and editing. But on the first draft I have to achieve velocity, just as you do if you want the bike to balance. DONALD M. MURRAY

It's not a bad idea to get in the habit of writing down one's thoughts. It saves one having to bother anyone else with them. ISABEL COLEGATE

The wastepaper basket is the writer's best friend. ISAAC BASHEVIS SINGER

Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader -- not the fact that it's raining, but the feel of being rained upon. EL DOCTOROW