Quotes about Writing

I've been on shows where they're just setting it up, and they're trying to find the tone of the writing and performance. That's always a really chaotic period on shows.

When it comes to sermon writing, generally there are two problems. Some preachers love the research stage but hate the writing, and they start writing too late. Others don't like doing research, so they move way too fast to the writing part.

For no man can write anything who does not think that what he writes is, for the time, the history of the world.

I've never had a writer's block, but still I think: Is it going to happen this time? You never know what you're going to get; you just put your fingers on the keys and hope.

Never place your punch at the beginning of a column nor at the end. Sneak it in where it's least expected. Fill a whole column with drivel, just to get in that one important line.

I learned to write by reading the kind of books I wished I'd written.

I learned to produce whether I wanted to or not. It would be easy to say oh, I have writer's block, oh, I have to wait for my muse. I don't. Chain that muse to your desk and get the job done.

There is no perfect time to write. There is only now.

The writing of fiction is a dance between truth and invention

Writing, which was both painful and palliative for me, turned out to be my own way of giving blood in a crisis. I can only hope this unit of words will have a longer shelf life than the forty-two days of a unit of blood, as this critical time blends seamlessly into the next one.

Just as breathing exercises help integrate body and mind, writing is a kind of psycho-neural muscular activity which helps bridge and integrate the conscious and subconscious minds. Writing distills, crystallizes, and clarifies thought and helps break the whole into parts.

Writing crystallizes thinking and distills meaning, and bridges the gap between the conscious and the unconscious.