A Quote by Don DeLillo

Every sentence has a truth waiting at the end of it and the writer learns how to know it when he finally gets there. On one level this truth is the swing of the sentence, the beat and poise, but down deeper it's the integrity of the writer as he matches with the language. I've always seen myself in sentences. I begin to recognize myself, word by word, as I work through a sentence. The language of my books has shaped me as a man. There's a moral force in a sentence when it comes out right. It speaks the writer's will to live.

Don DeLillo

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Always Beat Begin Books Deeper Down End Every Finally Force Gets How Integrity Know Language Learns Level Live Man Matches Me Moral Myself Out Poise Recognize Right Seen Sentence Sentences Shaped Speaks Swing Through Truth Truth Is Waiting Will Will To Live Word Work Writer

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Don DeLillo
American - Novelist
Born: November 20, 1936

One truth is the swing of the sentence, the beat and poise, but down deeper it's the integrity of the writer as he matches with the language.

Don DeLillo

Every sentence has a truth waiting at the end of it and the writer learns how to know it when he finally gets there.

Don DeLillo

I've always seen myself in sentences. I begin to recognize myself, word by word, as I work through a sentence.

Don DeLillo

There's a moral force in a sentence when it comes out right. It speaks the writer's will to live.

Don DeLillo

I'm a language-oriented writer who proceeds sentence by sentence.

Jayne Anne Phillips

I am not a particularly natural writer. I am not a person who can write in paragraphs the way some writers do. For me, it's sentence by sentence, sometimes word-by-word. And I revise constantly. It's a very laborious process, but I love doing it.

Yann Martel

I'm a very laboured writer. I hammer it out sentence by sentence, and it takes a long time. That's what the work is, right? To make the reader think it is not hard to do.

Janet Malcolm

The first sentence of the truth is always the hardest. Each of us had a first sentence, and most of us found the strength to say it out loud to someone who deserved to hear it. What we hoped, and what we found, was that the second sentence of the truth is always easier than the first, and the third sentence is even easier than that. Suddenly you are speaking the truth in paragraphs, in pages. The fear, the nervousness, is still there, but it is joined by a new confidence. All along, you've used the first sentence as a lock. But now you find that it's the key.

David Levithan

Writing is linear and sequential; Sentence B must follow Sentence A, and Sentence C must follow Sentence B, and eventually you get to Sentence Z. The hard part of writing isn't the writing; it's the thinking. You can solve most of your writing problems if you stop after every sentence and ask: What does the reader need to know next?

William Zinsser

Most people write the same sentence over and over again. The same number of words-say, 8-10, or 10-12. The same sentence structure. Try to become stretchy-if you generally write 8 words, throw a 20 word sentence in there, and a few three-word shorties. If you're generally a 20 word writer, make sure you throw in some threes, fivers and sevens, just to keep the reader from going crosseyed.

Janet Fitch

Never trust the translation or interpretation of something without first trusting its interpreter. One word absent from a sentence can drastically change the true intended meaning of the entire sentence. For instance, if the word love is intentionally or accidentally replaced with hate in a sentence, its effect could trigger a war or false dogma.

Suzy Kassem

You could say this word is better to use than that word, this sentence is good and that sentence isn't. But you don't determine the value of your work for other people.

Lynne Tillman

I have a hard time revising sentences, because I spend an inordinate amount of time on each sentence, and the sentence before it, and the sentence after it.

Chang-Rae Lee

Tormented by the cursed ambition always to put a whole book in a page, a whole page in a sentence, and this sentence in a word. I am speaking of myself.

Joseph Joubert

I'm the final clause in a periodic sentence, and that sentence begins a long time ago, in another language, and you to read it from the beginning to get to the end, which is my arrival.

Jeffrey Eugenides

I like to think of the individual words, then you put the word in the sentence, then you have to think about what that word means in the sentence, then you have to read the sentence in the paragraph - you're sort of building up like that; that's my philosophy.

Ann Goldstein

A Quote by Don DeLillo

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