David Lovelock collects quotations on writing.
"Doing research on the Web is like using a library assembled piecemeal by pack rats and vandalized nightly." Roger Ebert
" 'The Lucky One' is at its heart a romance novel, elevated however by Nicholas Sparks' persuasive storytelling. Readers don't read his books because they're true, but because they ought to be true." Roger Ebert
"Anyone who reads advice books about romance has one problem to begin with: bad taste in literature." Roger Ebert
"Every great film should seem new every time you see it." Roger Ebert
"I am utterly bored by celebrity interviews. Most celebrities are devoid of interest." Roger Ebert
"If a movie is really working, you forget for two hours your Social Security number and where your car is parked. You are having a vicarious experience. You are identifying, in one way or another, with the people on the screen." Roger Ebert
"If you find an occupation you love and spend your entire life working at it, is that enough?" Roger Ebert
"Many thrillers follow such reliable formulas that you can look at what's happening and guess how much longer a film has to run." Roger Ebert
"No good movie is too long and no bad movie is short enough." Roger Ebert
"One sign of a great actor is when he can be alone by himself on the screen, doing almost nothing, and producing one of a film's defining moments." Roger Ebert
"Samurai films, like westerns, need not be familiar genre stories. They can expand to contain stories of ethical challenges and human tragedy." Roger Ebert
"The idea that a book can advise a woman how to capture a man is touchingly naive. Books advising men how to capture a woman are far less common, perhaps because few men are willing to admit to such a difficulty. For both sexes, I recommend a good novel, offering scenarios you might learn from, if only because they reflect a lot of doubt." Roger Ebert
"There is a part of me that will forever want to be walking under autumn leaves, carrying a briefcase containing the works of Shakespeare and Yeats and a portable chess set. I will pass an old tree under which once on a summer night I lay on the grass with a fragrant young woman and we quoted e.e. cummings back and forth." Roger Ebert
"There must be a better reason to have a baby than to provide a plot point in a rom-com. Don't you think?" Roger Ebert
"Who was the real Hitchcock? I interviewed him once and haven't a clue." Roger Ebert
"Why has Scandinavia been producing such good thrillers? Maybe because their filmmakers can't afford millions for CGI and must rely on cheaper elements like, you know, stories and characters." Roger Ebert
"Why is it that English, drama and music teachers are most often recalled as our mentors and inspirations? Maybe because artists are rarely members of the popular crowd." Roger Ebert
"A play should give you something to think about. When I see a play and understand it the first time, then I know it can't be much good." T.S. Eliot
"I love reading another reader’s list of favorites. Even when I find I do not share their tastes or predilections, I am provoked to compare, contrast, and contradict. It is a most healthy exercise, and one altogether fruitful." T.S. Eliot
"Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal." T.S. Eliot
"It's strange that words are so inadequate. Yet, like the asthmatic struggling for breath, so the lover must struggle for words." T.S. Eliot
"Our high respect for a well read person is praise enough for literature." T.S. Eliot
"Playwriting gets into your blood and you can't stop it. At least not until the producers or the public tell you to." T.S. Eliot
"Poetry should help, not only to refine the language of the time, but to prevent it from changing too rapidly." T.S. Eliot
"Some editors are failed writers, but so are most writers." T.S. Eliot
"The bad poet is usually unconscious where he ought to be conscious, and conscious where he ought to be unconscious." T.S. Eliot
"The last thing one discovers in composing a work is what to put first." T.S. Eliot
"The most important thing for poets to do is to write as little as possible." T.S. Eliot
"The purpose of literature is to turn blood into ink." T.S. Eliot
"The very existence of libraries affords the best evidence that we may yet have hope for the future of man." T.S. Eliot
"We read many books, because we cannot know enough people." T.S. Eliot
"When I buy a new book, I always read the last page first, that way in case I die before I finish, I know how it ends. That, my friend, is a dark side." Nora Ephron
"If you wish to be a writer, write." Epictetus
"The difference between a novelist and someone who tinkers around with writing is this: novelists finish their books." Nancy Etchemendy
"The undertaking of a new action brings new strength." Evenius
"A bus station is where a bus stops. A train station is where a train stops. On my desk, I have a work station… " William Faulkner
"Don't be 'a writer'. Be writing." William Faulkner
"If I had not existed, someone else would have written me, Hemingway, Dostoyevsky, all of us." William Faulkner
"Writing a novel is like a one-armed man trying to nail together a chicken coop in a hurricane." William Faulkner
"If a writer has to rob his mother, he will not hesitate; the 'Ode to a Grecian Urn' is worth any number of old ladies." William Faulkner
"Cut out all these exclamation points. An exclamation point is like laughing at your own joke." F. Scott Fitzgerald
"All good writing is like swimming under water and holding your breath." F. Scott Fitzgerald
"An author ought to write for the youth of his own generation, the critics of the next, and the schoolmaster of ever afterwards." F. Scott Fitzgerald
"For awhile after you quit Keats all other poetry seems to be only whistling or humming." F. Scott Fitzgerald
"Great books write themselves, only bad books have to be written." F. Scott Fitzgerald
"I want leisure to read—an immense amount." F. Scott Fitzgerald
"If I knew words enough, I could write the longest love letter in the world and never get tired." F. Scott Fitzgerald
"Show me a hero and I'll write you a tragedy." F. Scott Fitzgerald
"That is part of the beauty of all literature. You discover that your longings are universal longings, that you're not lonely and isolated from anyone. You belong." F. Scott Fitzgerald
"To write it, it took three months; to conceive it three minutes; to collect the data in it all my life." F. Scott Fitzgerald
"What people are ashamed of usually makes a good story." F. Scott Fitzgerald
"Writers aren't people exactly. Or, if they're any good, they're a whole lot of people trying so hard to be one person." F. Scott Fitzgerald
"You don't write because you want to say something, you write because you have something to say." F. Scott Fitzgerald
"A good sentence in prose should be like a good line in poetry, unchangeable, as rhythmic, as sonorous." Gustave Flaubert
"Be steady and well-ordered in your life so that you can be fierce and original in your work." Gustave Flaubert
"Do not read, as children do, to amuse yourself, or like the ambitious, for the purpose of instruction. No, read in order to live." Gustave Flaubert
"I am irritated by my own writing. I am like a violinist whose ear is true, but whose fingers refuse to reproduce precisely the sound he hears within." Gustave Flaubert
"It is a delicious thing to write, whether well or badly—to be no longer yourself but to move in an entire universe of your own creating." Gustave Flaubert
"Judge the goodness of a book by the energy of the punches it has given you. I believe the greatest characteristic of genius, is, above all, force." Gustave Flaubert
"One arrives at style only with atrocious effort, with fanatical and devoted stubbornness." Gustave Flaubert
"Read in order to live." Gustave Flaubert
"Read much, but not many books." Gustave Flaubert
"Sentences must stir in a book like leaves in a forest, each distinct from each despite their resemblance." Gustave Flaubert
"Style is as much under the words as in the words. It is as much the soul as it is the flesh of a work." Gustave Flaubert
"The art of writing is the art of discovering what you believe." Gustave Flaubert
"The better a work is, the more it attracts criticism; it is like the fleas who rush to jump on white linens." Gustave Flaubert
"The faster the word sticks to the thought, the more beautiful is the effect." Gustave Flaubert
"The writer must wade into life as into the sea, but only up to the navel." Gustave Flaubert
"Writing is a dog's life, but the only one worth living." Gustave Flaubert
"You must write for yourself, above all. That is your only hope of creating something beautiful." Gustave Flaubert
"A very good editor is almost a collaborator." Ken Follett
"After a certain point, most people, including editors, will tell you everything you do is great." Ken Follett
"An awful lot of thriller writers write women rather badly. So just doing it OK gets a lot of credit." Ken Follett
"For me the words should be like a pane of glass that you look through, not at." Ken Follett
"For success, the author must make the reader care about the destiny of the principals, and sustain this anxiety, or suspense, for about 100,000 words." Ken Follett
"I aim to be translucent, so you don't notice the words, just their meaning. I haven't much insight into people's motivations." Ken Follett
"I am very fond of Edith Wharton. She's quite high brow but also a great storyteller. My favorite is 'The House of Mirth.' I also like 'The Reef.' " Ken Follett
"I don't think there's any great mystery to writing female characters, so long as you talk to them. If you lived in a monastery and never met any women, maybe it would be difficult." Ken Follett
"I imagined it. I wrote it. But I guess I never thought I'd see it." Ken Follett
"I like reading history, and actually most authors enjoy the research part because it is, after all, easier than writing." Ken Follett
"I like to create imaginary characters and events around a real historical situation. I want readers to feel: OK, this probably didn't happen, but it might have." Ken Follett
"I read mostly fiction, a lot of 19th-century novels." Ken Follett
"I start with the history, and I ask myself, 'What are the great turning points? What are the big dramatic scenes that are essential to telling the story?' " Ken Follett
"I started writing stories in my spare time." Ken Follett
"I use a professional researcher in New York who does all the legwork, all that stuff which would take me days and weeks of calling, waiting for people to call back." Ken Follett
"I wake up with the story in my head, so I really like to be at my desk about five minutes after I wake up. So I don't get dressed. I put on a bathrobe, I make tea and sit at my desk." Ken Follett
"I want to tell a story that makes the reader always want to see what will happen next." Ken Follett
"I'm a great planner, so before I ever write chapter 1, I work out what happens in every chapter and who the characters are. I usually spend a year on the outline." Ken Follett
"In my books, women often solve the problem. Even if the woman is not the hero, she's a strong character. She does change the plot. She'll often rescue the male character from some situation." Ken Follett
"James Bond is quite serious about his drinks and clothing and cigarettes and food and all that sort of thing. There is nothing wry or amused about James Bond." Ken Follett
"Listen, I wrote 10 unsuccessful books before I broke through, so I'm looking all the time to keep my books fascinating. I want to write what people want to read, not push any message." Ken Follett
"Most of my stories have some basis in fact." Ken Follett
"Movies have influenced all writers, not just thriller writers." Ken Follett
"My favorite period is World War II, and I'm in the middle of writing my fourth novel set in that era." Ken Follett
"One of the hardest things for me, now that I'm famous, is finding people who can read my stuff and give me an honest critique." Ken Follett
"People are much more complicated in real life, but my characters are as subtle and nuanced as I can make them. But if you say my characters are too black and white, you've missed the point. Villains are meant to be black-hearted in popular novels. If you say I have a grey-hearted villain, then I've failed." Ken Follett
"The research is the easiest. The outline is the most fun. The first draft is the hardest, because every word of the outline has to be fleshed out. The rewrite is very satisfying." Ken Follett
"The thriller is the most popular literary genre of the 20th century." Ken Follett
"Thrillers have been traditionally very masculine books; the women characters often rather decorative." Ken Follett
"We all now tell stories by cutting from one dramatic scene to the next, whereas Victorian novelists felt free to write long passages of undramatic summary." Ken Follett
"Well, for people who want to write best sellers, the best advice I can give is to say that the novel has to engage the reader emotionally." Ken Follett
"When I'm writing a woman character, I don't think, 'What would a woman do?' I just think, 'What would this character do in this situation?' " Ken Follett
"With the World War II era, there's so much written material to draw on. When you go back to the 14th century, you have to imagine more." Ken Follett
"Without books I would not have become a vivacious reader, and if you are not a reader you are not a writer." Ken Follett
"World War II is the greatest drama in human history, the biggest war ever and a true battle of good and evil. I imagine writers will continue to get stories from it, and readers will continue to love them, for many more years." Ken Follett
"You can't write novels about people who are timid, risk-averse and passive. Or you can, but they're called literary novels." Ken Follett
"The first thing you have to consider when writing a novel is your story, and then your story—and then your story!" Ford Madox Ford
"The only books that influence us are those for which we are ready, and which have gone a little farther down our particular path than we have yet got ourselves." E.M. Forster
"What is wonderful about great literature is that it transforms the man who reads it towards the condition of the man who wrote." E. M. Forster
"One always tends to overpraise a long book, because one has got through it." E.M. Forster
"The king died and then the queen died is a story. The king died, and then queen died of grief is a plot." E.M. Forster
"Spoon feeding in the long run teaches us nothing but the shape of the spoon." E.M. Forster
"Long books, when read, are usually overpraised, because the reader wishes to convince others and himself that he has not wasted his time." E.M. Forster
"A book is a mirror; if an ass peers into it, you can't expect an apostle to peer out." E.M. Forster
"The historian records, but the novelist creates." E.M. Forster
"The only people who find what they are looking for in life are the fault finders." Foster's Law
"I can shake off everything as I write; my sorrows disappear, my courage is reborn." Anne Frank
"It may be tripe, but it's my tripe—and I do urge other authors to resist encroachments on their brain-children and trust their own judgment rather than that of some zealous meddler with a diploma in creative punctuation who is just dying to get into the act." George MacDonald Fraser
"The greatest rules of dramatic writing are conflict, conflict, and conflict." James Frey
"To create a damn good thriller, you need to create a clever hero and send him or her on an 'impossible' mission to foil evil for the benefit of others." James Frey
"A gripping opening is not simply a good thing for your story. It's absolutely essential." James Frey
"Half the world is composed of people who have something to say and can't, and the other half who have nothing to say and keep on saying it." Robert Frost
"No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader." Robert Frost
"An original idea. That can't be too hard. The library must be full of them." Stephen Fry
"Books are no more threatened by Kindle than stairs by elevators." Stephen Fry
"If I was a book, I would like to be a library book, so I would be taken home by all different sorts of kids." Cornelia Funke
"Which of us has not felt that the character we are reading in the printed page is more real than the person standing beside us?" Cornelia Funke