seanlindsay's bookmarks

"There are few cases in which mere popularity should be considered a proper test of merit; but the case of song-writing is, I think, one of the few."

Poe, Edgar Allan on song and singing    Share


"No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem."

Washington, Booker T. on pride    Share

"There is a great discovery still to be made in literature, that of paying literary men by the quantity they do not write."

Carlyle, Thomas on literature    Share

"The reason a writer writes a book is to forget a book and the reason a reader reads one is to remember it."

Wolfe, Thomas on books - reading
8 fans of this quote    Share

"Writing in English is the most ingenious torture ever devised for sins committed in previous lives. The English reading public explains the reason why."

Joyce, James on language    Share

"A bad book is as much of a labor to write as a good one; it comes as sincerely from the author's soul."

Huxley, Aldous on books - reading    Share

"Employ your time in improving yourself by other men's writings so that you shall come easily by what others have labored hard for."

Socrates on writers and writing    Share

"All those writers who write about their childhood! Gentle God, if I wrote about mine you wouldn't sit in the same room with me."

Parker, Dorothy on autobiography    Share

"It is healthier, in any case, to write for the adults one's children will become than for the children one's mature critics often are."

Walker, Alice on criticism    Share

"Even those who write against fame wish for the fame of having written well, and those who read their works desire the fame of having read them."

Pascal, Blaise on fame    Share

"The only sensible ends of literature are, first, the pleasurable toil of writing; second, the gratification of one's family and friends; and lastly, the solid cash."

Hawthorne, Nathaniel on literature    Share

"A publisher is a specialized form of bank or building society, catering for customers who cannot cope with life and are therefore forced to write about it."

Haycraft, Colin on publishing and publishers    Share

"To write well, express yourself like common people, but think like a wise man. Or, think as wise men do, but speak as the common people do."

Aristotle on writers and writing
17 fans of this quote    Share

"I can write good songs. I can sing 'em, and I mean it, I mean it deeply, and I pour everything into that. Other than that, I suck."

Duritz, Adam on greatness    Share

"To try to write love is to confront the muck of language: that region of hysteria where language is both too much and too little, excessive and impoverished."

Barthes, Roland on love
14 fans of this quote    Share

"It is a sad fact about our culture that a poet can earn much more money writing or talking about his art than he can by practicing it."

Auden, W. H. on poetry and poets
3 fans of this quote    Share

"It seems that the fiction writer has a revolting attachment to the poor, for even when he writes about the rich, he is more concerned with what they lack than with what they have."

O'Connor, Flannery on fiction    Share

"Of all the ways of acquiring books, writing them oneself is regarded as the most praiseworthy method. Writers are really people who write books not because they are poor, but because they are dissatisfied with the books which they could buy but do not like."

Benjamin, Walter on books - reading
6 fans of this quote    Share

"The trouble with writing a book about yourself is that you can't fool around. If you write about someone else, you can stretch the truth from here to Finland. If you write about yourself the slightest deviation makes you realize instantly that there may be honor among thieves, but you are just a dirty liar."

Marx, Groucho on autobiography    Share

"Writing a book of poetry is like dropping a rose petal down the Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo."

Marquis, Don on poetry and poets    Share

"The satirist who writes nothing but satire should write but little -- or it will seem that his satire springs rather from his own caustic nature than from the sins of the world in which he lives."

Trollope, Anthony on sarcasm    Share

"A petty reason perhaps why novelists more and more try to keep a distance from journalists is that novelists are trying to write the truth and journalists are trying to write fiction."

Greene, Graham on journalism and journalists
3 fans of this quote    Share

"In Hollywood the woods are full of people that learned to write, but evidently can't read. If they could read their stuff, they'd stop writing."

Rogers, Will on movies    Share

"The life of every person is like a diary in which he means to write one story, and writes another."

Barrie, Sir James M. on life
18 fans of this quote    Share

"Those who write clearly have readers, those who write obscurely have commentators."

Lincoln, Abraham on ambiguity
9 fans of this quote    Share

"Every man with a bellyful of the classics is an enemy to the human race."

Miller, Henry on books - classics
3 fans of this quote    Share

"The chief enemy of creativity is good taste."

Picasso, Pablo on creativity
5 fans of this quote    Share

"Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats."

Aiken, Howard on ideas    Share

"Writers, you know, are the beggars of Western society."

Paz, Octavio on writers and writing    Share

"Most authors steal their works, or buy."

Pope, Alexander on writers and writing    Share

"True ease in writing comes from art, not chance, as those move easiest who have learned to dance. 'Tis not enough no harshness gives offence. The sound must seem an echo to the sense."

Pope, Alexander on writers and writing    Share

"Nothing written for pay is worth printing. Only what has been written against the market."

Pound, Ezra on writers and writing    Share

"What no wife of a writer can ever understand is that a writer is working when he's staring out of the window."

Rascoe, Burton on writers and writing    Share

"To write something, you have to risk making a fool of yourself."

Rice, Anne on writers and writing    Share

"Fundamentally, all writing is about the same thing; it's about dying, about the brief flicker of time we have here, and the frustration that it creates."

Richler, Mordecai on writers and writing    Share

"Every writer is a narcissist. This does not mean that he is vain; it only means that he is hopelessly self-absorbed."

Rosten, Leo on writers and writing    Share

"The only reason for being a professional writer is that you can't help it."

Rosten, Leo on writers and writing    Share

"If you're going to write, don't pretend to write down. It's going to be the best you can do, and it's the fact that it's the best you can do that kills you."

Parker, Dorothy on writers and writing    Share

But wait... my book has more: prev 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 next

Sean Lindsay's quote collection

I'm male, taken from Australia and made my book on 17th July 2007.

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