Writing Quotes

"Many books require no thought from those who read them, and for a very simple reason; they made no such demand upon those who wrote them."

--Charles Caleb Colton

"[W]e can get away with things in children's books that nobody in the adult world ever can because the assumption is that the audience is too innocent to pick it up. And in truth they're the only audience that does pick it up."

--Maurice Sendak

"You've got to sell your heart, your strongest reactions, not the little minor things that only touch you lightly, the little experiences that you might tell at dinner. This is especially true when you begin to write, when you have not yet developed the tricks of interesting people on paper, when you have none of the technique which it takes time to learn. When, in short, you have only your emotions to sell."

--F. Scott Fitzgerald

"My advice to a budding literary critic would be as follows. Learn to distinguish banality. Remember that mediocrity thrives on 'ideas.' Beware of the modish message. Ask yourself if the symbol you have detected is not your own footprint. Ignore allegories. By all means place the 'how' above the 'what' but do not let it be confused with the 'so what.' Rely on the sudden erection of your dorsal hairs. Do not drag in Freud at this point. All the rest depends on personal talent."

--Vladimir Nabokov