A Quote by Cyril Connolly

Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self.

Cyril Connolly

Quote Topics

Better Public Self Than Write Yourself

Quote Author

Cyril Connolly
English - Journalist
September 10, 1903 - November 26, 1974

I'll give you the sole secret of short-story writing, and here it is: Rule 1. Write stories that please yourself. There is no rule 2. The technical points you can get from Bliss Perry. If you can't write a story that pleases yourself, you will never please the public. But in writing the story forget the public.

O. Henry

If you can't write a story that pleases yourself, you will never please the public. But in writing the story forget the public.

O. Henry

The fact that the theatregoing public likes my music is no credit to me. There are many other composers who write better music that the public doesn't like.

Jerome Kern

It is always better to write for the whole of society than for the poetry-reading public.

Tony Harrison

Real writers write because they love to write. They don't write for public acclaim.

Chuck Palahniuk

A society - any society - is defined as a set of mutual benefits and duties embodied most visibly in public institutions: public schools, public libraries, public transportation, public hospitals, public parks, public museums, public recreation, public universities, and so on.

Robert Reich

Millions of public workers have become a kind of privileged new class - a new elite, who live better than their private sector counterparts. Public servants have become the public's masters. No wonder the public is upset.

Mortimer Zuckerman

Gather knowledge about the craft of writing. Immerse yourself in the art of it. Then write. Write yourself silly. Write yourself mad. Write yourself blind. Trust the excitement that builds within you when the idea is good and the writing is superb. You can do it, but that's the hell of it as well as the exultation of it. You have to do it.

Elizabeth George

As an actor, we always want people to write about us and talk about us. And when they are actually writing, then we say, 'Don't write about this.' I am an actor; I am a public property. I don't own myself; public owns me.

Ranbir Kapoor

I do not write for the public. You are my public and I hope to convert you.

Gerard Manley Hopkins

Writing is a weird thing because we can read, we know how to write a sentence. It's not like a trumpet where you have to get some skill before you can even produce a sound. It's misleading because it's hard to make stories. It seems like it should be easy to do but it's not. The more you write, the better you're going to get. Write and write and write. Try not to be hard on yourself.

Gail Carson Levine

To write weekly, to write daily, to write shortly, to write for busy people catching trains in the morning or for tired people coming home in the evening, is a heartbreaking task for men who know good writing from bad. They do it, but instinctively draw out of harm's way anything precious that might be damaged by contact with the public, or anything sharp that might irritate its skin.

Virginia Woolf

I like to think that I'm one of the few people in public life who write their own material. I write every word. And I really enjoy writing - especially my political commentary.

Ed Koch

The public! why, the public's nothing better than a great baby.

Thomas Chalmers

I think I'll always be a better playwright than a pundit, but I believe that writers should be public intellectuals and that theater, even more than film, is a place of public debate.