Quotes about Writing

This is the role of writers: to turn their tears into a story - and perhaps into a prayer.

Every great and original writer, in proportion as he is great or original, must himself create the taste by which he is to be relished.

I was infinitely more useful to my clients when I wrote copy than when I was Chairman of the Board.

Never a day without a line.

Did I write it so as not to go mad or, on the contrary, to go mad in order to understand the nature of madness?

I write to understand as much as to be understood.

The only wealth I'm interested in is a wealth of words.

I've only ever taken a playwriting class, but I like creative writing and writing screenplays.

I write a chapter, then edit it and edit it and edit it and edit it. I don't think we mine creativity from within. It's bestowed from on high, from God.

I am writing a book about the Crusades so dull that I can scarcely write it.

When people charge in with great insistence that this is God's word all the while neglecting the very real humanity of these books, they can inadvertently rob these writings of their sacred power. All because of starting in the wrong place. You start with the human. You ask those questions, you enter there, you direct your energies to understanding why these people wrote these books. Because whatever divine you find in it, you find the divine through and in the human, not around it.

What's the Best Question to Ask When You're Reading the Bible? Why did people find this important to write down?...Why did people write this down? What was going on in their world that this was important to them? Why did they feel the need to put words to this? Start with that question. Start with those questions. And see what happens.