Top 1200 Writing Dialogue Quotes & Sayings - Page 5

Explore popular Writing Dialogue quotes.
Last updated on April 21, 2025.
I was very in my own head as a kid. But I liked it there! I was just writing poetry, writing stories, writing plays. I think I was quite strange. But I was happy.
But when a man draws a lifeless thing into his passionate longing for dialogue, lending it independence and as it were a soul, then there may dawn in him the presentiment of a world-wide dialogue with the world-happening that steps up to him even in his environment, which consists partially of things. Or do you seriously think that the giving and taking of signs halts on the threshold of that business where an honest and open spirit is found?
People don't live their lives in a series of scenes that form a dramatic narrative, they don't speak in dialogue, they're not lit by a cinematographer or scored by a composer. The properties of real life and the properties of drama have almost nothing to do with each other. The difference between writing about reporters and being a reporter is the same as the difference between drawing a building and building a building.
I figure I wrote 37 songs in 20 years, and that's not exactly a full-time job. It wasn't that I was writing and writing and writing and quit. — © Tom Lehrer
I figure I wrote 37 songs in 20 years, and that's not exactly a full-time job. It wasn't that I was writing and writing and writing and quit.
I'm more of a songwriter. I love writing songs. I love writing my songs. It's always been writing for me, and it makes it different when you're writing for yourself.
Although Kim Jong Un is a very unreasonable leader and has a firm, unreasonable belief that nuclear and missile weapons will protect him and his regime, we will continue to employ all possible means - sanctions, pressure, as well as dialogue - to draw North Korea to the negotiating table for denuclearization. To resolve the issue, we have to add dialogue to the current menu of sanctions and pressure.
I vicariously lived the life of an independent producer from the time I was four years old. And what was always important was writing, writing, writing.
I think that writers are best served by sticking to their writing. Not having loads of theories about the best way to position the writing. I think that if the writing is good and the point of view is strong, the writing is going to take care of itself.
Reading aloud sounds like a good idea, but honestly, it doesn't work very well. Good dialogue in a book doesn't actually bear much resemblance to real-life dialogue. For example, if you've ever seen a word-for-word transcript of people talking, it doesn't read off the page very well. The trick is to make it *seem* like it's being spoken, not to make it speakable.
Actually, I've taught creative writing in Turkey, at an English language university, where the students were native Turkish speakers, but they were writing their essays in English, and they were very interesting - even the sense of structure, the conventions of writing, the different styles of writing.
I love writing. I never feel really comfortable unless I am either actually writing or have a story going. I could not stop writing.
I enjoyed writing in school. I don't know that I was all that good at it in school. I worked at it later. I feel comfortable writing now. I enjoy writing now. I suspect, like most college students, I viewed writing then to be more tedious.
Right now-whether you're in writing courses getting "paid" in credit for writing, or burdened and distracted by earning a living and changing diapers-figure out how to make writing an integral part of your life. Publication is good, and gives you the courage to go on, but publication is not as important as the act of writing.
Writing is the process of finding something to distract you from writing, and of all the helpful distractions - adultery, alcohol and acedia, all of which aided our writing fathers - none can equal the Internet.
Writing fiction is very different to writing non-fiction. I love writing novels, but on history books, like my biographies of Stalin or Catherine the Great or Jerusalem, I spend endless hours doing vast amounts of research. But it ends up being based on the same principle as all writing about people: and that is curiosity!
It is a singular reaction, this sitting still and writing, writing, writing, or ruminating at length, which is much the same, really. — © Vladimir Nabokov
It is a singular reaction, this sitting still and writing, writing, writing, or ruminating at length, which is much the same, really.
Whether it's writing a monologue or writing standup or writing a screenplay or writing a play, I think staying involved in the creation of your own work empowers you in a way, even if you don't ever do it. It gives you a sense of ownership and a sense of purpose, which I think as an actor is really important.
Plato used the dialogue format because the exchange of views, the posing and answering of questions, showed that understanding is a living, dynamic process. He distrusted writing because the settled character of the written word makes it look as if truth can be fixed and made to stand still. It is worth remembering that this greatest advocate of the objective reality of truth also believed that our access to that truth was sustained in reasoned discussion.
I'm just writing, writing, writing. I keep these tablets on me until I'm inspired to go back in and make the music. I never take a break from my pen, because I pride myself on that.
When it comes to sermon writing, generally there are two problems. Some preachers love the research stage but hate the writing, and they start writing too late. Others don't like doing research, so they move way too fast to the writing part.
I went to Marion College for writing and I was kicked out of the writing school. I was asked to leave the writing program because I was corrupting the other students.
I'm not writing for myself. I'm writing as an educator, I'm writing to stimulate others.
I got into dialogue because my parents began taking me to see plays from when I was very young. Too young, often, to understand the play I was watching: Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf when I was nine years old; That Championship Season when I was ten years old. But I loved the sound of dialogue; it sounded like music to me and I wanted to imitate that sound.
Working on Drive, a lot of fun. This is Tim Minear whom I've worked with before on Firefly of course. He called me up and said I've got a part for you that you will love and I love Tim's writing. I love his stories. I love his characters, his dialogue. He has a knack for reveals and he has a knack for moments.
In this work (peace building), the role of religion is fundamental. It is not possible to build bridges between people while forgetting God, ... But the converse is also true: it is not possible to establish true links with God while ignoring other people. Hence it is important to intensify dialogue among the various religions, and I am thinking particularly of dialogue with Islam.
On the craft level, writing for children is not so different from writing for adults. You still have to have a story that moves forward. You still have to have the tools of the trade down. The difference arises in the knowledge of who you're writing for. This isn't necessary true of writing for adults.
I really like writing for specific projects. It's a whole different way of writing when you have certain guidelines and a theme you're writing to. It's very inspiring.
Writing can come naturally to some. Still, when it comes to good writing, this is true: Easy reading is damn hard writing.
People think that writing is writing, but actually writing is editing. Otherwise, you're just taking notes
I read a lot of scripts, and there's a lot of good writing and a lot of OK writing and a lot of crappy writing. And even with the really good writing, it doesn't necessarily speak to me.
The process of re-writing and writing and re-writing means that you may have a brilliant phrase, but over time it distills and distorts and changes.
Writing, for me, when I'm writing in the first-person, is like a form of acting. So as I'm writing, the character or self I'm writing about and my whole self - when I began the book - become entwined. It's soon hard to tell them apart. The voice I'm trying to explore directs my own perceptions and thoughts.
Writing has to do with truth-telling. When you're writing, let's say, an essay for a magazine, you try to tell the truth at every moment. You do your best to quote people accurately and get everything right. Writing a novel is a break from that: freedom. When you're writing a novel, you are in charge; you can beef things up.
One of the things I had to learn as a writer was to trust the act of writing. To put myself in the position of writing to find out what I was writing.
Non-violence means dialogue, using our language, the human language. Dialogue means compromise; respecting each other’s rights; in the spirit of reconciliation there is a real solution to conflict and disagreement. There is no hundred percent winner, no hundred percent loser—not that way but half-and-half. That is the practical way, the only way.
From 1940 to about 1960, I had been writing just regular comics, the way my publishers wanted me too. He didn't want me to use words of more than two syllables if I could help it. He didn't want me to waste time on worrying about good dialogue or characterization. Just give me a lot of action, lot of fight scenes.
Most of the time you're writing for radio, you're writing for a label, you're writing to stick a hit, and you end up coming out with something that isn't necessarily genuine.
Most of the time, you're writing for radio, you're writing for a label, you're writing to stick a hit, and you end up coming out with something that isn't necessarily genuine.
I approach writing a poem in a much different state than when I am writing prose. It's almost as if I were working in a different language when I'm writing poetry. The words - what they are and what they can become - the possibilities of the words are vastly expanded for me when I'm writing a poem.
Nobody told all the new e-mail writers that the essence of writing is rewriting. Just because they are writing with ease and enjoyment doesn't mean they are writing well. — © William Zinsser
Nobody told all the new e-mail writers that the essence of writing is rewriting. Just because they are writing with ease and enjoyment doesn't mean they are writing well.
If things are going well I can easily spend twelve hours a day writing, but not writing writing, just thinking and revising and taking a comma out and putting it back in.
Writing on the subway or anywhere is writing. Maybe it's all just writing.
I'm very driven by writing. Coming from 'Saturday Night Live,' because it's such a writing job, and we all write our parts on the show and create characters, I'm so respectful of good writing.
Unless there is a strong sense of place there is no travel writing, but it need not come from topographical description; dialogue can also convey a sense of place. Even so, I insist, the traveler invents the place. Feeling compelled to comment on my travel books, people say to me, "I went there"---China, India, the Pacific, Albania-- "and it wasn't like that." I say, "Because I am not you.
Working on 'Drive', a lot of fun. This is Tim Minear whom I've worked with before on 'Firefly' of course. He called me up and said, 'I've got a part for you that you will love,' and I love Tim's writing. I love his stories. I love his characters, his dialogue. He has a knack for reveals and he has a knack for moments.
Writing for adults and writing for young people is really not that different. As a reporter, I have always tried to write as clearly and simply as possible. I like clean, unadorned writing. So writing for a younger audience was largely an exercise in making my prose even more clear and direct, and in avoiding complicated digressions.
If you do not breathe through writing, if you do not cry out in writing, or sing in writing, then don't write, because our culture has no use for it.
Writing is a key differentiator. I've used it for 14 years. Writing will not just lead to differentiation. Writing is the credibility you need to create buyer confidence
I don’t even know what I’m writing, I have no idea, I don’t know anything, and I’m not reading over it, and I’m not correcting my style, and I’m writing just for the sake of writing, just for the sake of writing more to you… My precious, my darling, my dearest!
There is so much about the process of writing that is mysterious to me, but this one thing I've found to be true: writing begets writing.
When I'm editing my work, I'm looking for everything to fit, to feel seamless, for every detail or line of dialogue or scene to feel necessary and organic. I approach the writing of others in much the same way while always working to preserve the writer's voice. To allow myself to be vulnerable on the page, I tell myself no one is going to read my work. There's no way I could put myself out there otherwise.
The secret to writing is just to write. Write every day. Never stop writing. Write on every surface you see; write on people on the street. When the cops come to arrest you, write on the cops. Write on the police car. Write on the judge. I'm in jail forever now, and the prison cell walls are completely covered with my writing, and I keep writing on the writing I wrote. That's my method.
For me, most of the anxiety and difficulty of writing takes place in the act of not writing. It's the procrastination, the thinking about writing that's difficult. — © Adam Mansbach
For me, most of the anxiety and difficulty of writing takes place in the act of not writing. It's the procrastination, the thinking about writing that's difficult.
I have to say that writing about my writing process is more daunting than writing non-fiction.
I haven’t had trouble with writer’s block. I think it’s because my process involves writing very badly. My first drafts are filled with lurching, clichéd writing, outright flailing around. Writing that doesn’t have a good voice or any voice. But then there will be good moments. It seems writer’s block is often a dislike of writing badly and waiting for writing better to happen.
Good writing is clear. Talented writing is energetic. Good writing avoids errors. Talented writing makes things happen in the reader's mind - -vividly, forcefully.
If you have to find devices to coax yourself to stay focused on writing, perhaps you should not be writing what you're writing. And if this lack of motivation is a constant problem, perhaps writing is not your forte. I mean, what is the problem? If writing bores you, that is pretty fatal. If that is not the case, but you find that it is hard going and it just doesn't flow, well, what did you expect? It is work; art is work.
I started writing sketches with Dennis Kelly, who I ended up writing 'Pulling' with. We entered a BBC competition and did quite well, then started writing bits for other people's shows. You wheedle your way in, write pilots and eventually you end up writing a sitcom.
I always tell audiences when I talk about writing: Writing isn't something I do; writing is something that I am. I am writing - it's just an expression of me.
I never stopped writing. I started writing when I was twelve years of age. And I was writing all the time. But nothing was translated until thirty years after I started writing, when The Hidden Face of Eve was translated in 1980.
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