Writerly Quotes... Pt... Last?

And here we are for the T-Z installment of my writerly quotes.  Unfortunately, I don't have any X-Z quotes, so you'll have to settle for only going through W.


If you get in an accident or a barfight and break all the fingers on both hands THEN you can claim writers block. Other than that you have the ability to write. - James R. Tuck, Jr.

The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter—’tis the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning. - Mark Twain

Substitute "damn" every time you're inclined to write "very;" your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be. - Mark Twain

The test of any good fiction is that you should care something for the characters; the good to succeed, the bad to fail. The trouble with most fiction is that you want them all to land in hell, together, as quickly as possible. - Mark Twain

I write to give myself strength. I write to be the characters that I am not. I write to explore all the things I'm afraid of. - Joss Whedon

 The hope and aim of a word-handler is that he may communicate a thought or an impression to his reader without the reader’s realizing that he has been dragged through a series of hazardous or grotesque syntactical situations. - E.B. White

You must want to enough. Enough to take all the rejections, enough to pay the price of disappointment and discouragement while you are learning. Like any other artist, you are learning your craft -- then you can add all the genius you like. - Phyllis A. Whitney

Writing is not like painting where you add. It is not what you put on the canvas that the reader sees. Writing is more like a sculpture where you remove, you eliminate in order to make the work visible. Even those pages you remove somehow remain. - Elie Wiesel

If the writing is honest it cannot be separated from the man who wrote it. - Tennessee Williams

With Silver James' help - X Y Z:

 "Try to write the best you can without worrying too much about other things in advance." ~Qiu Xiaolong, best-selling Chinese crime novelist (living now in St. Louis)

"Make sure the first scene starts with a dead horse in the living room." ~Rebecca York/Ruth Glick, best-selling author

"Books hold no passports. There’s only one true literary tradition: the human." ~ Carlos Ruiz Zafón, Spanish author

Thanks for stopping by.  I should have some more guest posters coming around soon.