Top 1200 Professional Writing Quotes & Sayings

One paradox of professional writing is that books written solely for money and/or acclaim will almost never be good enough to garner either.

You've got to be a good reader. So whatever genre that you're interested in, read a lot of books about it and it's better than any kind of writing class you'll ever take. You will absorb techniques and then in a lot of cases you can just start writing using the style of the book or the author that you admire and then your own style will emerge out of that. Be a diligent reader and then try to write seriously, professionally and approach everything in writing in a professional way.

I thought that choosing a non-professional was a condition for me, because it would allow Juliette to have a less-professional way of acting. It would challenge her performance as a professional actress.

Writing is not "the establishment of a professional reputation" as if one were a doctor or lawyer; it is not properly in the sentence with creation of a family and the purchase of a home.

Outlining is not writing. Coming up with ideas is not writing. Researching is not writing. Creating characters is not writing. Only writing is writing.

I am in the Master of Professional Writing program teaching Humor Writing, Literary and Dramatic.

I am a professional squash player, and I recently played badly - but as well as I could - in a professional squash tournament. A professional squash player might sound like someone who is in a food-tasting group, but it is a racquet sport.

I'm a professional songwriter - personal attitudes have nothing to do with writing a song.

I was lucky to get a professional contract. I wasn't that sort of talent that is considered to be a professional player.

My passion is writing comics and storytelling, and I'm constantly working to improve. I hit my deadlines, I know how to work with and artists, I'm professional, and I bring my A-game every time.

There wasn't much technical terminology, and then, most academics are not trained in writing. And there is what is probably worse than ever before, the growing use of professional jargon.

The art schools seem to be trying to turn people out as "professional." But I don't know what the word "professional" means any longer. "Professional" would be somebody who was trying to push painting to a point that nobody else could do as well as he could. That would be my ideal professional.

I made up my mind long ago to follow one cardinal rule in all my writing-to be clear. I have given up all thought of writing poetically or symbolically or experimentally, or in any of the other modes that might (if I were good enough) get me a Pulitzer prize. I would write merely clearly and in this way establish a warm relationship between myself and my readers, and the professional critics-Well, they can do whatever they wish.

If you are a professional player and you are playing in the top professional league, you are sorted financially, which is good.

Compared to professional dancers, I'm obviously not professional but I do love to dance so much.

When I'm not working in a professional capacity, I'm writing, and when I'm at home, it's a way of having contact with people or communicating.

I don't know if I ever would have developed into a good actor, but that got completely scotched when I lost my vocal cord at 14 in the operation. But writing always - writing plays, writing, writing, writing, that was what I wanted to do.

I've never done anything bad. I can't do anything bad. It's got to be professional. It's got to look professional. It's got to read professional. In other words, it serves its purpose by entertaining a reader.

The difference between an amateur and a professional is in their habits. An amateur has amateur habits. A professional has professional habits. We can never free ourselves from habit. But we can replace bad habits with good ones.

I'm not a professional; I lack even basic knowledge about writing music.

Writing objects to the lie that life is small. Writing is a cell of energy. Writing defines itself. Writing draws its viewer in for longer than an instant. Writing exhibits boldness. Writing restores power to exalt, unnerve, shock, and transform us. Writing does not imitate life, it anticipates life.

The professional's love for the theater is less pure than that of the non-professional's.

I come to writing from hearing great stories as a child in Louisiana, where the mark of a person was his or her ability to be a raconteur. I also come to writing as a professional actress whose body has been trained to listen and smell and inhabit characters without judgment.

Good critical writing is measured by the perception and evaluation of the subject; bad critical writing by the necessity of maintaining the professional standing of the critic.

I feel like I'm a professional. I've been a professional for a number of years. I'm a businesswoman and a tax lawyer and a professional and so that's how I treat other people.

After a couple of years in a professional setting, you'll get used to dressing presentably, preparing for meetings, speaking appropriately, showing up on time, writing professional correspondence, etc.

... we weren't very professional; she could have gone to almost any town and put together a smoother ensemble, but we were pioneers, and professional musicians probably wouldn't have come up with what we did ... professional musicians probably wouldn't have given Janis Joplin the space to be herself, which was probably our greatest gift to her

To be on time, to eat well like a professional, to sleep like a professional. To train and play like a professional. I encourage everyone to do this every day.

At this stage, my chief professional goal is simply to keep on writing and making a living at it.

Where's the line between professional girlfriend, and just plain professional?

Writing is a wholetime job: no professional writer can afford only to write when he feels like it.

Don't let anyone discourage you from writing. If you become a professional writer, there are plenty of editors, reviewers, critics, and book buyers to do that.

I suppose my professional life can be split into writing books that all sound like infomercial products, most notably 'The 4-Hour Workweek,' and then tech investing.

First of all, as a professional, you can run around saying "artists, schmartists" as much as you want. But I'm a professional, so if somebody hires me for something, I'm going to bring my best to it. They've hired me, I'm professional, I show up on time, I do my job. That's what we're doing. So in that sense, it's always both things.

We're professional worriers. You're constantly imagining things that could go wrong and then writing about them.

Ordinary Women was shot on a soundstage with a professional crew and a professional animation studio creating everything.

When I'm writing, I'm writing for a particular actor. When a lot of writers are writing, they're writing an idea. So they're not really writing in a specific voice.

It's common procedure in the industry for people with little or no professional writing experience to get a book deal because of their profile, and then hire a writer.

Mitt Romney knows a lot. He's a very professional - a consummate professional.

I could not be more thrilled to be writing about the recipes I love and think are essential to any novice home cook, professional, and somewhere in between.

Universal literacy was a 20th-century goal. Before then, reading and writing were skills largely confined to a small, highly educated class of professional people.

By the time I was 22, I was a professional. A young and flawed professional, but not an amateur.

I guess I'm not a professional's professional. I think I'd rather go to the dentist than play a practice round.

Who is a professional? A professional is someone who has a combination of competence, confidence and belief. A water diviner is a professional. A traditional midwife is a professional. A traditional bone setter is a professional. These are professionals all over the world. You find them in any inaccessible village around the world.

There was a moment when I changed from an amateur to a professional. I assumed the burden of a profession, which is to write even when you don't want to, don't much like what you're writing, and aren't writing particularly well

Three words that still have meaning, that I think we can apply to all professional writing, are discovery, originality, invention.The professional writer discovers some aspect of the world and invents out of the speech of his time some particularly apt and original way of putting it down on paper.

My very first professional writing credit was on a movie called The Dunwich Horror, and Roger Corman was the executive producer.

I think some of the best sex writing is going to come from the unexpected sources, not the same old same old. Like I'd love to see a memoir by a submissive man, because we've seen one from a professional submissive and dommes and strippers and hookers. I'd love to see more men writing frankly, not jokingly, about sex.

I'm a true professional. I don't play no acting games, and I take pride in my work and being a professional.

I'm a professional. So before I published any novels, I'd always been writing stories.

I'm a professional fighter and like most professional fighters I have had difficulties with my hands in the past.

Local markets for literary fiction remain underdeveloped; the metropolis often holds out the only real possibility of a professional writing career.

To create a market for your writing you have to be consistent, professional, a continuing writer - not just a one-article or a one-story or a one-book man.

As an amateur, you may envy the professional, wishing you could combine business with pleasure into a kind of full-time hobby, using professional equipment and facilities. However, the professional knows that much of the hidden advantage of being amateur is the freedom you have to shoot what and when you like.

What happens when you're a child professional is that you have to be, well, professional. You're taught not to have tantrums, to always people-please.

A lot of people, myself included, are excited about blogging and stuff like that, citizen journalism, but I do remind people that no matter how excited we are, there's no substitute for professional writing, no substitute for professional editing, and no substitute for professional fact-checking.

The biggest obstacle to professional writing is the necessity for changing a typewriter ribbon.

Not many guys are on a professional baseball roster, but have an ability to pursue another professional sport.

I never imagined when I began writing in the early 1960s I'd become professional and my life would be transformed.

The long experiment with professional politicians and professional government is over, and it failed.