Top 11 Copywriting Quotes & Sayings

I've devoted a lot of my time and effort during the past few years to developing my advertising copywriting business to the point of where I can support my family and don't have to depend on writing fiction for my income.

Copywriting cuts the communication cord between word and feeling. By offering instant gratification, it atrophies more subtle emotions.

The copywriter uses words as tools to persuade and motivate an audience. You persuade your readers that you have something valuable to offer; you motivate them to acquire it for themselves. This is the essence of effective copywriting.

I don't keep a diary or a journal. Sometimes I'll send emails to friends and that's a way of recording what I was thinking at any given time. But I've never been a journal keeper. I feel like part of that is because I'm always on deadline. I've been a freelancer my entire career and, at any given time, I have several deadlines for all sorts of things whether it's some magazine piece or ad copywriting or anything. Obviously, people with deadlines keep journals all the time but, for me, the idea of doing more writing is never appealing. It's why I never blog.

I'm interested in the economy of words and forms: jokes, aphorisms, copywriting, advertising, that way of writing when meaning has to be squeezed into as few words as possible.

Copywriting probably did make me a commercial writer. Nobody wants to read advertising copy, so you have to keep it punchy; you almost have trick them into reading it. You have to make every sentence work.

20 years ago, when Bob Bly starting teaching copywriting, the field was deeply shrouded in mystery. Now, thanks to Bob, learning copywriting, though still a tricky proposition, is much easier.

I've been a freelancer my entire career, and, at any given time, I have several deadlines for all sorts of things, whether it's some magazine piece or ad copywriting or anything.

Cindy is a terrific writer and has both a studied - and an intuitive - understanding of the best practices of no-hype, high results copywriting.

By 1961, when I got my first copywriting job, 'my kind' were suddenly in demand. The creative revolution had begun. Advertising had turned into a business dominated by young, funny, Jewish copywriters and tough, sometimes violent, Greek and Italian art directors.

Comics are not illustration, any more than fiction is copywriting. Illustration is essentially the application of artistic technique or style to suit a commercial or ancillary purpose; not that cartooning can't be this (see any restaurant giveaway comic book or superhero media property as an example), but comics written and produced by a cartoonist sitting alone by him- or herself are not illustrations. They don't illustrate anything at all, they literally tell a story.