10 of My Favorite Quotes on Writing

Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you’ve been to college. –Kurt Vonnegut

 

Write without pay until somebody offers pay. If nobody offers within three years, the candidate may look upon this circumstance with the most implicit confidence as the sign that sawing wood is what he was intended for. –Mark Twain

 

The faster you blurt, the more swiftly you write, the more honest you are.  –Ray Bradbury

 

Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip. –Elmore Leonard

 

The first draft of anything is shit.—Ernest Hemingway.

 

Omit needless words. –William Strunk

 

The only rule for writing I have is to leave it while I’m still hot… –William Faulkner

 

Whoever wants to tell a story of a sainted grandmother, unless you can find some old love letters, and get a new grandfather?  –Robert Penn Warren

 

When you write the thing through once, you find out what the end is. Then you can go back to the first chapter and put in a lot of those foreshadowings. –Flannery O’Connor

 

As far as I’m concerned the entire reason for becoming a writer is not having to get up in the morning.  –Neil Gaiman

Wisdom in 5 Simple Lessons

Confucius statue at the Confucian Temple, Beijing

Confucius statue at the Confucian Temple, Beijing

1.) Be kind, everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle –Plato

2.) If you choose, you are free; if you choose, you need blame no man.  –Epictetus

3.) …the greatest carver does the least cutting.  –Lao Tzu

4.) If it falls to your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures.  –Martin Luther King Jr

5.) A gentleman wishes to be slow to speak and quick to do.  –Confucius