Top 234 Drafts Quotes & Sayings

I would go so far as to say that I mostly write terrible things. I mean, my first drafts are so appalling.

You don't get to be a good screenwriter unless you do 20, 30 drafts: fact.

I wrote the screenplay for 'This Is Where I Leave You' - all 40 drafts of it.

Most of my early work was done on typewriter. And the only way to iterate drafts was to re-type it.

You should write first drafts as if they will never be shown to anyone.

I had written eight drafts of the Lemony Snicket' screenplay when this changing-of-the-guard thing happened, and I said to the new producers, "I don't think I could write any more drafts." I guess I was sort of hoping they would say, "Well that's okay, this last one is perfect." But instead, they said, "It's funny you should say that. We don't think you can write any more drafts either."

So much of writing is about what characters don't say, and in the early drafts, sometimes things get overwritten.

Every poem probably has sixty drafts behind it.

I'm still learning so much with every play I write. So I wrestle with word choice, rhythm in final drafts. I think you have to be ruthless.

I began my first novel when I was 15. It went through three drafts, of around 40,000 words each. If I find it, I'll burn it.

It is simply not part of my culture to preserve notes. I have never heard of a writer preserving his early drafts.

I remember Emilio [Estevez] and I were at John's house during the rehearsal process. And John [Huges] had mentioned he wrote the first draft of Breakfast Club in a weekend. And we both at the same time went, "First draft? How many do you have?" And John said he's got four other drafts. And we go, "Can we read them?" And for the next three hours, Emilio and I read those other four drafts.

I think people feel for a long time that they ought to know how to write a novel in two drafts.

You have to get something down, and then find ways of working in complexity and different layers of meaning... My first drafts are usually the ravings of a delusional fantasist.

I have a high guilt quotient. A poem can go through as many as 50 or 60 drafts. It can take from a day to two years - or longer.

I usually do about five drafts per rhyme for each song.

I prefer to write first drafts as soon as possible after waking, so that the oneiric inscape is still present to me.

The bottom line is that I like my first drafts to be blind, unconscious, messy efforts; that's what gets me the best material.

Don't dive into the weeds of mock drafts and rumors, because that's all that they are. They're just rumors.

I write on a laptop, so it's impossible to count drafts anymore.

When I began to write and used a typewriter, I went through three drafts of a book before showing it to an editor.

I don't write drafts. I write from the beginning to the end, and when it's finished, it's done.

It's more like I write multiple first drafts, handwritten. So with my first novel, I wrote whole drafts from different points of view. There are different versions of that novel in a drawer on loose-leaf sheets. I won't even look at the first draft while I'm writing the second, and I won't look at the second before writing the third.

And when my second book had come out, "Wild Gratitude," I went to Pearl London's class and she worked through different drafts of poems and there were the drafts of my poem, "Wild Gratitude," and I saw that I had begun the poem with the title "August 13th."

I didn't intentionally emplace the raw material needed for political/allegorical readings into any of the first drafts, but sooner or later I saw it coming, and I did intentionally not cut it from some of the final drafts. In other words, I'm not particularly interested in encouraging readers to read certain stories that way, but I want to make sure that route's accessible should anyone be so inclined.

I've done as many as 20 or 30 drafts of a story. Never less than 10 or 12 drafts.

When you see two writers named on a movie, one of them did some drafts and got the boot.

I am such a rewriter; I have so many notebooks filled with drafts you wouldn't believe.

I'm a physical learner. I learn from writing drafts, not reading them.

I'm pretty rigorous about the drafts I turn in. I don't turn in something that's so ungodly they go, 'What the hell is this?'

First drafts are never any good - at least, mine aren't.

We are all continually embarking on first drafts, in every aspect of our lives.

Only ambitious nonentities and hearty mediocrities exhibit their rough drafts. It's like passing around samples of sputum.

Once I have a book in my head, I write progressive drafts fast and obsessively and have trouble sleeping.

I wish I wrote drafts and then revised them, but I don't. What I do is I seem to revise as I go.

Architect. One who drafts a plan of your house, and plans a draft of your money.

In my own work, I usually revise through forty or fifty drafts of a poem before I begin to feel content with it.

It took me years of attempts and failed drafts before I finally wrote the elegies I needed to write.

During my first eight years at the Revs we drafted really well, but I got very little from the last two drafts that I took part in.

A writer must have all the confidence in the world when writing the first draft and none whatsoever when editing subsequent drafts.

I am never at picnics. The ground was not meant to be sat upon in its raw state, I feel sure, and I prefer my food without either caterpillars or drafts!

I've always wanted to make it to the NBA and be on a team, so whatever team drafts me I'm going to be happy with.

The greatest pleasure when I started making money was not buying cars or yachts but finding myself able to have as many freshly typed drafts as possible.

Once I've got the first draft down on paper then I do five or six more drafts, the last two of which will be polishing drafts. The ones in between will flesh out the characters and maybe I'll check my research.

I don't read anything electronically. I don't write electronically, either - except e-mails to my family and friends. I write in longhand. I have always written first drafts by hand, but I used to write subsequent drafts and insert pages on a typewriter.

I hate first drafts, and it never gets easier. People always wonder what kind of superhero power they'd like to have. I wanted the ability for someone to just open up my brain and take out the entire first draft and lay it down in front of me so I can just focus on the second, third and fourth drafts.

I dread first drafts! I worry each day that it won't come, that nothing will happen.

Good first drafts and speedy responses to consumer dialog will always trump lawyered corporate speak.

I have never thought of myself as a good writer. Anyone who wants reassurance of that should read one of my first drafts. But I'm one of the world's great rewriters.

First drafts are for learning what your story is about.

As I get ready to buy a new computer, I'm stunned at all the many micro drafts, of different chapters and scenes and whatnot, that litter the hard drive.

Every second a seeker can start over, For his life's mistakes Are initial drafts And not the final version.

I'll play for whoever drafts me. I'm just not going to be presumptuous about what they want to do. It's the draft.

I would like to get drafted at all and I will be happy to play for whoever drafts me.

Love lies in those unsent drafts in your mailbox. Sometimes you wonder whether things would have been different if you'd clicked 'Send'.

I number my drafts, and by the time a book is done, I'll have 75 or 80 drafts of some sections.

Yep, I often lit the barbie with old drafts.

Elizabeth Hardwick told me once that all her first drafts sounded as if a chicken had written them. So do mine for the most part.

I'm a great reviser. I do these reckless drafts just to get the lay of the land.

I have a high guilt quotient. A poem can go through as many as 50 or 60 drafts. It can take from a day to two years-or longer.