9 Quotes Tagged: written

Books aren't written - they're rewritten. Including your own. It is one of the hardest things to accept, especially after the seventh rewrite hasn't quite done it.

"Don't annoy your readers by over-explaining — by telling them something they already know or can figure out. Try not to use words like "surprisingly," "predictably" and "of course," which put a value on a fact before the reader encounters the fact. Trust your material."

Learn to enjoy this tidying process. I don't like to write; I like to have written. But I love to rewrite. I especially like to cut: to press the DELETE key and see an unnecessary word or phrase or sentence vanish into the electricity. I like to replace a humdrum word with one that has more precision or color. I like to strengthen the transition between one sentence and another. I like to rephrase a drab sentence to give it a more pleasing rhythm or a more graceful musical line. With every small refinement I feel that I'm coming nearer to where I would like to arrive, and when I finally get there I know it was the rewriting, not the writing, that wont the game.

The written record is by far the more important component in an appellate court’s decisionmaking, but the oral argument often elicits helpful clarifications and concentrates the judges’ minds on the character of the decision they are called upon to make.

Writing is such a lonely work that I try to keep myself cheered up.

Vulnerability has a strength of its own.

But on the question of who you're writing for, don't be eager to please.

The writer, his eye on the finish line, never gave enough thought to how to run the race.

There are some writers who sweep us along so strongly in their current of energy — Normal mailer, Tom Wolfe, Toni Morrison, William F. Buckley, Jr., Hunter Thompson, David Foster Wallace, Dave Eggers — that we assume that when they go to work the words just flow. Nobody thinks of the effort they made every morning to turn on the switch. You also have to turn on the switch. Nobody is going to do it for you.