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distilled-prose · 9 months ago

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From Facebook - M. A. Rothman 9/26/24

If the English language made any sense, lackadaisical would have something to do with a shortage of flowers.

- Doug Larson

Writers don’t have lifestyles. They sit in little rooms and write.

- Norman Mailer

Learn to write. Never mind the damn statistics. If you like statistics, become a CPA.

- Jim Murray

The dubious privilege of a freelance writer is he’s given the freedom to starve anywhere.

- S.J. Perelman

Writing is easy. All you do is stare at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead.

- Gene Fowler

If you can't annoy somebody, there's little point in writing.

- Kingsley Amis

Real seriousness in regard to writing is one of two absolute necessities. The other, unfortunately, is talent.

- Ernest Hemingway

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

- Jessamyn West

I was sorry to hear my name mentioned as one of the great authors, because they have a sad habit of dying off. Chaucer is dead, so is Milton, so is Shakespeare, and I am not feeling very well myself.

- Mark Twain

All autobiographies are alibi-ographies.

- Clare Booth Luce

The art of writing is the art of applying the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair.

- Mary Heaton Vorse

The world is a hellish place, and bad writing is destroying the quality of our suffering.

- Tom Waits

The average Ph.D. thesis is nothing but a transference of bones from one graveyard to another.

- J. Frank Dobie

An autobiography usually reveals nothing bad about its writer except his memory.

- Franklin P. Jones

Long, hard slog today writing the Great American Tweet.

(That was it...what do you think? Pulitzer?)

- Greg Tamblyn

A bad review may spoil your breakfast, but you shouldn't allow it to spoil your lunch.

- Kingsley Amis

Unless a reviewer has the courage to give you unqualified praise, I say ignore the bastard.

- John Steinbeck

Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamppost how it feels about dogs.

- Christopher Hampton

The only time I'll get good reviews is if I kill myself.

- Edward Albee

As far as I'm concerned, "whom" is a word that was invented to make everyone sound like a butler.

- Calvin Trillin

Listen up, Internet: there is no "h" in "wacky." Got that? THERE IS NO "H" IN "WACKY." Thank you.

- Dave Barry

Writing and travel broaden your ass if not your mind and I like to write standing up.

- Ernest Hemingway

About the most originality that any writer can hope to achieve honestly is to steal with good judgment.

- Josh Billings

Alimony is the curse of the writing class.

- Norman Mailer

Autobiography is an unrivaled vehicle for telling the truth about other people.

- Philip Guedalla

An autobiography is an obituary in serial form with the last installment missing.

- Quentin Crisp

Practically everybody in New York has half a mind to write a book, and does.

- Groucho Marx

Having been unpopular in high school is not just cause for book publications.

- Fran Lebowitz

Revising a story down to the bare essentials is always a little like murdering children, but it must be done.

- Stephen King

Never let a bad memory get in the way of a good memoir.

- Joanie Levenson

Everywhere I go I'm asked if I think the university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them. There's many a best-seller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.

- Flannery O’Connor

It's splendid to be a great writer, to put men into the frying pan of your imagination and make them pop like chestnuts.

- Gustave Flaubert

Writing is a socially acceptable form of getting naked in public.

- Paulo Coelho

All literature is gossip.

- Truman Capote

Your manuscript is both good and original; but the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good.

- Dr. Samuel Johnson, to an aspiring writer

I can write better than anybody who can write faster, and I can write faster than anybody who can write better.

- A. J. Liebling

There's not much to be said about the period except that most writers don't reach it soon enough.

- William Zinsser

It took me fifteen years to discover I had no talent for writing, but I couldn't give it up because by that time I was too famous.

- Robert Benchley

When I was a little boy, they called me a liar, but now that I am a grown up they call me a writer.

- Isaac Bashevis Singer

Never, ever use repetitive redundancies. Don't use no double negatives. Proofread carefully to see if you any words out.

- William Safire

Only kings, presidents, editors, and people with tapeworms have the right to use the editorial "we."

- Mark Twain

Writing is like prostitution. First you do it for love, and then for a few close friends, and then for money.

- Ashish Chauhan ‏@4shish

Did you hear about the little boy who ended a sentence with 5 prepositions? He said, "What are you bringing that book that I don't want to be read to out of up for?"

Let me see if I can put it in words that even the inebriated might understand.

- Tom Robbins

When Thoreau wrote: "Simplify, simplify, simplify!" shouldn't he have edited it down to "Simplify!"?

- CrankyPappy ‏@CrankyPappy

He does not so much split his infinitives as disembowel them.

- Rebecca West

I am a writer. If I seem cold, it 's because I am surrounded by drafts.

- (Unknown Author)

How many writers does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

Six:

One to screw it in,

One to sharpen all the pencils in the house,

One to make more coffee,

One to call a friend to chat,

And one to complain that there's never time to do any writing.

Wait, that's only five — that's why they need editors.

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