Quotes of the Week

The purpose of writing is to make your mother and father drop dead with shame.

--J. P. DONLEAVY

The whole labor of writing is to make it look like it just came off the top of your head.

--Paddy Chayefsky

I look upon literature as an art, and I practice it as an art. Of course, it is also a vocation, and a trade, and a profession, and all kinds of things; but first it’s an art, and you should practice it as that, I think.

--KATHERINE ANNE PORTER

The worst thing you can do is censor yourself as the pencil hits the paper. You must not edit until you get it all on paper. If you can put everything down, stream-of-consciousness, you’ll do yourself a service.

--STEPHEN SONDHEIM

If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.

--Stephen King

I rewrote the ending of Farewell to Arms, the last page of it, 39 times before I was satisfied ...

--Ernest Hemingway

Whenever you write, whatever you write, never make the mistake of assuming the audience is any less intelligent than you are.

--Rod Serling

Go a little out of your depth, and when you don’t feel that your feet are quite touching the bottom, you’re just about in the right place to do something exciting.

--David Bowie

The very reason I write is so that I might not sleepwalk through my entire life.

--ZADIE SMITH

The first draft of anything is shit.

--Ernest Hemingway