Terry Pratchett Quotes

Well, one thing I'm really interested in, when I'm writing, is being accurate.

The core of my writing is not art but truth.

Paul's the writer. Yeah, I wrote a little of that stuff, but that's just technically true. In spirit, and in essence of the truth, it doesn't matter. So I don't know, maybe I'm being foolish for not being technical. Yeah, I wrote a certain portion of the things.

Truth: An ingenious compound of desirability and appearance …

You can write anything you want to,--a six-act blank verse, symbolic tragedy or a vulgar short, short story. Just so that you write it with honesty and gusto, and do not try to make somebody believe that you are smarter than you are. What's the use? You can never be smarter than you are.

Fundamental accuracy of statement is the ONE sole morality of writing.

If you intend to write as truthfully as you can, your days as a member of polite society are numbered.

I'm trying to speak--to write-the truth. I"m trying to be clear. I'm not interested in being fancy, or even original. Clarity and truth will be plenty, if I can only achieve them.

As a writer, I have always considered it my job to describe the world as I know it; to struggle toward whatever portion of the truth is available to me.

Say what you mean. Say what you see. Make a photograph, if you can, for the reader.

I feel with this film that as long as we tell Philomena's story and as long as we're true to her, which Jeff and Steve have already done by writing the story... we must not sell her short;. She's a most remarkable woman and all my concern was that we must be absolutely true to her story.

The faster you blurt, the more swiftly you write, the more honest you are.

I have never pretended to be a great writer. I am totally immodest about being a great reporter and a good news writer. I write fast and I write accurately, nearly as accurately as anybody can be, and that's my skill.

I would have every man write what he knows and no more.

Never lie in writing.

Another thing that's good about writing to describe a situation or a state of consciousness is that you can finally get it right. That was my intention, and that's always interesting.

Who does not know that the first law of historical writing is the truth.

If I cannot be myself in what I write, then the whole is nothing but lies and humbug.

In lapidary inscriptions a man is not upon oath.

You know, I began my life as a creative person writing true things for magazines and telling some very honest, straightforward personal essaying for This American Life, but until someone forces you, with a deadline, to really observe your life - unless you're motivated to do it yourself - there's so many stories that you miss.

Good writing is about telling the truth.

When I am giving the relation of a thing, remember to abstain from altering either in the matter or manner of speaking, so much, as that, if every one, afterwards, should alter as much, it would at last come to be properly false.

You cannot write well without data.

I have thought it my duty to exhibit things as they are, not as they ought to be.

In writing, I shall always confine myself strictly to the truth, except when it is attended with inconvenience.