A Quote by William Manchester

I came to a dead stop and began major revisions. Sometimes these entailed the shredding of all existing manuscript for a fresh start - an inefficient way to write a book, though I found it exciting.

William Manchester

Quote Topics

Began Book Came Dead Exciting Existing Found Fresh Fresh Start Inefficient Major Manuscript Shredding Sometimes Start Stop Though Way Write

Quote Author

William Manchester
American - Historian
April 1, 1922 - June 1, 2004

I like to say that I always have a whole book in front of me. I write down the major beats, the major action moments or emotional moments. In theory, that's a book - it's just one page long. Then I start to go back and fill things in.

Leigh Bardugo

Go where the pleasure is in your writing. Go where the pain is. Write the book you would like to read. Write the book you have been trying to find but have not found. But write. And remember, there are no rules for our profession. Ignore rules. Ignore what I say here if it doesn't help you. Do it your own way. Every writer knows fear and discouragement. Just write.The world is crying for new writing. It is crying for fresh and original voices and new characters and new stories. If you won't write the classics of tomorrow, well, we will not have any.

Anne Rice

I was dead until you found me, though I breathed. I was sightless, though I could see. And then you came...and I was awakened.

J.R. Ward

Sometimes I do work on a longer manuscript in tandem with one or two shorter pieces - whether it's a short story or an essay (though I don't write many of the latter).

Christine Sneed

I came to political consciousness with John F. Kennedy's magnificent 1961 Inaugural Address. It seemed the start of something fresh and exciting, and it was.

Joe Klein

the relationship between people knot so easily, there needs to be a person skilled at working free the threads. Sometimes, though, the only way to extricate a tangle is to cut it out and start fresh.

Jodi Picoult

Titles are very hard. Sometimes a title comes before I start to write the book, but often I finish the book and I still don't have a title. I have to go through the book again and then sometimes I hope a title jumps out at me from what I've written.

Eve Bunting

It was relatively easy to write 'The Cave of Lost Souls', though, because it came to me one night in a dream. I remember waking up and having this idea for a complete story - from start to finish - in my head, so I jotted it down, then later began writing the thing.

Paul Kane

If you try to control it too much, the book is dead. You have to let it fall apart quite early on and let it start doing its own thing. And that takes nerve, not to panic that the book you were going to write is not the book you will have at the end of the day.

Anne Enright

My uncommon sense told me to write this book [Turn and blossom], even though I was in the middle of making final revisions to my dissertation! Common sense would have said, finish the dissertation and get a good, solid academic position. But instead, I got to do something that no one else has done, because I don't think anyone has written a book quite like this one. And look at how beautiful it is!

Theodora Goss

To me, all the juice of a book is in an unpublished manuscript, and the published book is like a dead tree - just good for cutting up and building your house with.

Christina Stead

My first book deal was actually for a textbook - 'Judo and You' - that I wrote while teaching at Temple University. A scout for Kendall-Hunt came looking for someone to write the book, and even though it wasn't a course I was teaching there, I agreed to write it.

Jonathan Maberry

What you can do is present existing flavors in a fresh way, in a fresh context.

Danny Meyer

The best way to learn to write is to read in the genre you might be interested in; then, you need to actually sit down and write. In a lot of cases, the first book you write will not get published. Do not get hung up on that. Start a second book.

Homer Hickam

I'm quite good at multitasking, but I have to do things immediately. I have a book where I write things down: major topics, deadlines, things like that. Every few months, I start a new book.