These writing quotations from Mark Twain begin with my favorite Twain quip...which isn't about writing, but I couldn't resist...
“A lie can get halfway around the world before the truth can even get its boots on..." ~ Mark Twain.
"Well, my book is written - let it go. But if it were only to write over again there wouldn't be so many things left out. They burn in me; and they keep multiplying; but now they can't ever be said. And besides, they would require a library - and a pen warmed up in hell." ~ Letter to W. D. Howells, 22 Sept 1889.
"The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug." ~ Mark Twain
"I wrote the rest of The Innocents Abroad in sixty days and I could have added a fortnight's labor with the pen and gotten along without the letters altogether. I was very young in those days, exceedingly young, marvelously young, younger than I am now, younger than I shall ever be again, by hundreds of years. I worked every night from eleven or twelve until broad daylight in the morning, and as I did 200,000 words in the sixty days, the average was more than 3,000 words a day - nothing for Sir Walter Scott, nothing for Louis Stevenson, nothing for plenty of other people, but quite handsome for me. In 1897, when we were living in Tedworth Square, London, and I was writing the book called Following the Equator, my average was 1,800 words a day; here in Florence (1904) my average seems to be 1,400 words per sitting of four or five hours." ~ Autobiography of 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
"You need not expect to get your book right the first time. Go to work and revamp or rewrite it. God only exhibits his thunder and lightning at intervals, and so they always command attention. These are God's adjectives. You thunder and lightning too much; the reader ceases to get under the bed, by and by." ~ Letter to Orion Clemens, 23 March 1878.
"The time to begin writing an article is when you have finished it to your satisfaction. By that time you begin to clearly and logically perceive what it is that you really want to say." ~ Mark Twain's Notebook, 1902-1903.
"To get the right word in the right place is a rare achievement. To condense the diffused light of a page of thought into the luminous flash of a single sentence, is worthy to rank as a prize composition just by itself...Anybody can have ideas - the difficulty is to express them without squandering a quire of paper on an idea that ought to be reduced to one glittering paragraph." ~ Letter to Emeline Beach, 10 Feb 1868.
"As to the adjective, when in doubt, strike it out." ~ Mark Twain, Pudd'nhead Wilson, 1894. (This is one of my favorite writing quotations from Mark Twain -- I revere concise writing).
"Let us guess that whenever we read a sentence & like it, we unconsciously store it away in our model-chamber; & it goes, with the myriad of its fellows, to the building, brick by brick, of the eventual edifice which we call our style." ~ Letter to George Bainton, 15 Oct 1888.
"I notice that you use plain, simple language, short words and brief sentences. That is the way to write English - it is the modern way and the best way. Stick to it; don't let fluff and flowers and verbosity creep in. When you catch an adjective, kill it. No, I don't mean utterly, but kill most of them - then the rest will be valuable. They weaken when they are close together. They give strength when they are wide apart. An adjective habit, or a wordy, diffuse, flowery habit, once fastened upon a person, is as hard to get rid of as any other vice." ~ Letter to D. W. Bowser, 20 March 1880.
"We write frankly and fearlessly but then we "modify" before we print." ~ Life on the Mississippi.
If you want to add more writing quotations from Mark Twain -- or any quotations at all! -- please do so below...
For more writing quotations -- and writing tips -- visit Quips and Tips for Successful Writers.
Showing posts with label Mark Twain. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mark Twain. Show all posts
Nov 24, 2010
Apr 8, 2008
establishing your writing habits
I’m on a Julia Cameron kick, even though she’s not my all-time favorite writing writer. Don’t get me wrong, she’s great – but I like reading practical stuff about writing, like how to write query letters and how to take all those old ideas and twist them into something new. Morning Pages never really did it for me.
Anyway, on to Julia’s advice about artists and trainers…
Writing quotation: “In order to succeed as an artist we must have two well-developed functions: our artist and its trainer. The trainer is steady and adult. It keeps its eye on the course and the long run. It coaxes, wheedles, begs, cajoles, and occasionally disciplines our artist, which Westie-like, proceeds in spurts and sometimes not at all,” Cameron says in Finding Water: The Art of Perseverance.
“The trick is setting the jumps low enough that our artist can be lured into action. If I am writing nonfiction, I set my goal at a modest three pages. Almost anyone can write three pages of something and my artist knows that.”
Writing tip: Julia Cameron's writing habit includes 3 pages. Yours can be 3 paragraphs or 3,000 words. Or, you can write for 3 hours – or just 30 minutes. The trick is to do something every day that moves you forward.
I’m a freelance magazine writer, and right now I have 5 articles due (yay!). The deadlines vary from this Friday to two months from now – and I get scared. Insecure, and anxious, and pressured. I want the articles to be fantastic, and I want to keep my editors happy.
What works best for me is to work a little on each article every day, whether it’s writing the sidebar or emailing sources or researching or finetuning the lead. My ideal goal would be to spend an hour a day on each article – but I tend to get lost in the article I’m working on and I run out of time for the others.
What works best for you? It doesn’t matter how I work, or how Julia Cameron writes, or how Mark Twain wrote. What matters is finding what works best for you, and making that a habit.
And tossing back a shot of espresso or whatever suits your fancy every once in a while never hurts, either.
Anyway, on to Julia’s advice about artists and trainers…
Writing quotation: “In order to succeed as an artist we must have two well-developed functions: our artist and its trainer. The trainer is steady and adult. It keeps its eye on the course and the long run. It coaxes, wheedles, begs, cajoles, and occasionally disciplines our artist, which Westie-like, proceeds in spurts and sometimes not at all,” Cameron says in Finding Water: The Art of Perseverance.
“The trick is setting the jumps low enough that our artist can be lured into action. If I am writing nonfiction, I set my goal at a modest three pages. Almost anyone can write three pages of something and my artist knows that.”
Writing tip: Julia Cameron's writing habit includes 3 pages. Yours can be 3 paragraphs or 3,000 words. Or, you can write for 3 hours – or just 30 minutes. The trick is to do something every day that moves you forward.
I’m a freelance magazine writer, and right now I have 5 articles due (yay!). The deadlines vary from this Friday to two months from now – and I get scared. Insecure, and anxious, and pressured. I want the articles to be fantastic, and I want to keep my editors happy.
What works best for me is to work a little on each article every day, whether it’s writing the sidebar or emailing sources or researching or finetuning the lead. My ideal goal would be to spend an hour a day on each article – but I tend to get lost in the article I’m working on and I run out of time for the others.
What works best for you? It doesn’t matter how I work, or how Julia Cameron writes, or how Mark Twain wrote. What matters is finding what works best for you, and making that a habit.
And tossing back a shot of espresso or whatever suits your fancy every once in a while never hurts, either.
Jan 26, 2008
accepting your writer's mind
Writing quotation: “We need to learn to accept our minds. Believe me, for writing, it is all we have,” says Natalie Goldberg. “It would be nice if I could have Mark Twain’s mind, but I don’t. Mark Twain is Mark Twain. Natalie Goldberg is Natalie Goldberg.”
You know, I don’t think it would be nice if Natalie Goldberg had Mark Twain’s mind. Then we’d have less originality, less creativity – and we’d have more writers doing the same thing. Don't get me wrong - Twain is amazing - but maybe it's better to have different minds creating different worlds.
Writing tip: When you compare yourself to any other writer – whether it’s Joan Didion or Stephen King – you chip away at your self-confidence. You smother your writing style.
When you accept your mind, you express your thoughts without judging or censoring them. You write, and send out your ideas, and participate in the writer’s life. When you accept your mind you realize your originality and creativity: nobody has ideas like yours. Develop them.
This writing quotation came from Natalie Goldberg’s Wild Mind: Living the Writer’s Life.
You know, I don’t think it would be nice if Natalie Goldberg had Mark Twain’s mind. Then we’d have less originality, less creativity – and we’d have more writers doing the same thing. Don't get me wrong - Twain is amazing - but maybe it's better to have different minds creating different worlds.
Writing tip: When you compare yourself to any other writer – whether it’s Joan Didion or Stephen King – you chip away at your self-confidence. You smother your writing style.
When you accept your mind, you express your thoughts without judging or censoring them. You write, and send out your ideas, and participate in the writer’s life. When you accept your mind you realize your originality and creativity: nobody has ideas like yours. Develop them.
This writing quotation came from Natalie Goldberg’s Wild Mind: Living the Writer’s Life.
Jan 8, 2008
writing quotations about waiting
Here's a writing tip from Mark Twain and E.B. White. Their two great writing quotations seem contradictory, but could actually be complementary. What do you think?
“Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do.” said Mark Twain.
Compare that with E.B. White’s writing quotation:
“Delay is natural to a writer. He is like a surfer – he bides his time, waits for the perfect wave and which to ride in. Delay is instinctive with him. He waits for the surge (of emotion? of strength? of courage?) that will carry him along,” White said.
Writing tip: The writing secret is to balance risk-taking (and possible regret) with waiting for the perfect wave. But don’t wait too long, writers. You may regret it.
E.B. White's writing quotation came from Shoptalk: Learning to Write With Writers by Donald Murray. Mark Twain's quote isn't a writing quotation at all! But I apply it to my writing habits almost every day.
“Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do.” said Mark Twain.
Compare that with E.B. White’s writing quotation:
“Delay is natural to a writer. He is like a surfer – he bides his time, waits for the perfect wave and which to ride in. Delay is instinctive with him. He waits for the surge (of emotion? of strength? of courage?) that will carry him along,” White said.
Writing tip: The writing secret is to balance risk-taking (and possible regret) with waiting for the perfect wave. But don’t wait too long, writers. You may regret it.
E.B. White's writing quotation came from Shoptalk: Learning to Write With Writers by Donald Murray. Mark Twain's quote isn't a writing quotation at all! But I apply it to my writing habits almost every day.
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