Inspirational Quotes on Writing

“There’s ither poets, much your betters, Far seen in Greek, deep men o’ letters, Hae thought they had ensur’d their debtors, A’ future ages; Now moths deform in shapeless tatters, Their unknown pages.”

“Writers are b*tc*ing about 140 characters. If you can't make a point in two sentences, how good is that book of yours really going to be? Taken from Twitter Titters Volume 1 edited by John Rice”

“It is absolutely indispensable, for most people, especially for the like of me, so thin-skinned and so confused at being, to get into perfect seclusion of mind from time to time and to be well alone”

“At the same time [the contemplative] most earnestly wants everybody else to share his peace and his joy. His contemplation gives him a new outlook on the world of men. He looks about him with a secret and tranquil surmise which he perhaps admits to no one; hoping to find in the faces of other men or to hear in their voices some sign of vocation and potentiality for the same deep happiness and wisdom. He finds himself speaking of God to the men in whom he hopes he has recognized the light of his own peace, the awakening of his own secret: or if he cannot speak to them, he writes for them, and his contemplative life is still imperfect without sharing, without companionship, without communion.”

“It’s not what you look at that matters, It’s what you see.”

“He writes because for him it is a luxury which becomes the more agreeable and more evident, the fewer there are who buy and read what he writes.”

“Windy attorneys to their clinets' woes, Airy succeeders of intestate joys, Poor breathign orators of miseries: Let them ahve scope, though what they will impart Help nothing else, yet do they ease the heart”

“Si no quieres perderte en el olvido tan pronto como estés muerto, escribe cosas dignas de leerse, o haz cosas dignas de escribirse.”

“There is no clearer sign of the absence of originality among modern poets than their disposition to find new themes. Really original poets write poems about the spring. They are always fresh, just as the spring is always fresh. Men wholly without originality write poems about torture, or new religions, of some perversion of obscenity, hoping that the mere sting of the subject may speak for them. But we do not sufficiently realise that what is true of the classic ode is also true of the classic joke. A true poet writes about the spring being beautiful because (after a thousand springs) the spring really is beautiful. In the same way the true humourist writes about a man sitting down on his hat, because the act of sitting down on one’s hat (however often and however admirably performed) really is extremely funny. We must not dismiss a new poet because his poem is called To a Skylark; nor must we dismiss a humourist because his new farce is called My Mother-in-law. He may really have splendid and inspiring things to say upon an eternal problem. The whole question is whether he has.”

“The lyrical author is only concerned with his production, enjoys the pleasure of producing, often perhaps only after pain and effort; but he has nothing to do with others, he does not write in order that: in order to enlighten men or in order to help them along the right road, in order to bring about something; in short he does not write in order that.”

“Una storia per bambini che piace solo ai bambini non è un granché.”

“Poetry is, after all, only nonsense and justifies what would be considered impudence if written in prose.”