A Quote by Ellen Hunnicutt

Revision plays a very large role in writing. Sometimes it seems to be all revision. And the longer I write, the more I revise-until it is completely right.

Ellen Hunnicutt

Quote Topics

Large Longer More Plays Revise Revision Right Role Seems Sometimes Until Very Write Writing

Quote Author

Ellen Hunnicutt
American - Author
May 4, 1931 - June 24, 2003

The writing is what gives me the joy, especially editing myself for the page, and getting something ready to show to the editors, and then to have a first draft and get it back and work to fix it, I love reworking, I love editing, love love love revision, revision, revision, revision.

George Carlin

Sometimes I would write while inspired and sometimes I would write through sheer force of will, and in revision the writing that I thought was "dead" very frequently turned out to be better because it was more free of ego.

Jesse Michaels

One great aim of revision is to cut out. In the exuberance of composition it is natural to throw in - as one does in speaking - a number of small words that add nothing to meaning but keep up the flow and rhythm of thought. In writing, not only does this surplusage not add to meaning, it subtracts from it. Read and revise, reread and revise, keeping reading and revising until your text seems adequate to your thought.

Jacques Barzun

With time some poems just fall by the wayside. Other poems get better over time with revision, revision, revision. My ladybug poem took 10 minutes to write but was 10 years in the making.

Douglas Florian

My advice to writers: thank goodness we can revise and adjust and tighten and rethink before going public with our words. Revision is our friend. Our best friend. I love revision.

Dinty W. Moore

I'm a passionate believer in revision, and a lot of my writing gets done during revision process. It isn't just tweaking: I tend to break it apart and remake it every time I do a new draft.

John Jeremiah Sullivan

Somewhere I put it this way: first drafts are for learning what one’s fiction wants him to say. Revision works with that knowledge to enlarge and enhance an idea, to reform it. Revision is one of the exquisite pleasures of writing.

Bernard Malamud

God Himself has reserved no right of revision of His own laws nor is there any need for Him for any such revision.

Mahatma Gandhi

Students need to be reminded that revision isn't merely making a few cosmetic changes. Revision is seeing and then reseeing our words and practicing strategies that make a difference in our writing.

Georgia Heard

My life is constant revision but it's not revision, a lot of it is for the first time.

Robin Ince

The European Union and Russia have an identical viewpoint. We have condemned any potential revision of the ABM treaty, believing that such a revision will involve a risk of proliferation that will be very dangerous for the future.

Jacques Chirac

The revision of the books of Judges, Samuel, and Kings, undertaken towards the end of the Babylonian exile, a revision much more thorough than is commonly assumed, condemns as heretical the whole age of the Kings.

Julius Wellhausen

I think there simply comes a point at which you're beating your head against the wall with revision, when you're making something different but not better. For me, revision usually has more to do with making the language prettier, finding clearer images, using more active verbs.

Mary J. Miller

The lion's share of my work is revision, 85%? I revise forever, combing over lines, listening and listening to them in different hours and moods so that I feel they are finally right for me.

Samantha Hunt

So, the process of revision, it's not systematic. But for me, I mean, I know a lot of poets who write out a draft and then revise it and I think they're happier people. But, I'm just not able to do it that way. I need to just continually examine it as I do it.