Mark Twain Quotes

I am never as clear about any matter as when I have finished writing about it.

Like when you have the right title for something you're writing and you get lost - you can always go back to the title and go, "Yeah, that's what this is about."

If you want to "get in touch with your feelings," fine, talk to yourself. We all do. But if you want to communicate with another thinking human being, get in touch with your thoughts. Put them in order, give them a purpose, use them to persuade, to instruct, to discover, to seduce. The secret way to do this is to write it down, and then cut out the confusing parts.

Good writing ... involves the agony of turning profoundly difficult thoughts into lucid form, then forcing them into the tight-fitting uniform of language, making them visible and clear.

A problem with a piece of writing often clarifies itself if you go for a long walk.

Easy reading requires hard writing.

Just start writing and you'll find what you want to say.

There is nothing like writing to force you to think and get your thoughts straight.

Having written Camp David as a drama, I could see the drama maybe a little more clearly when I wrote the book.

Writing is thinking. To write well is to think clearly. That's why it's so hard.

You need not expect to get your book right the first time. Go to work and revamp or rewrite it. God only exhibits his thunder and lightning at intervals, and so they always command attention. These are God's adjectives. You thunder and lightning too much; the reader ceases to get under the bed, by and by.

I feel satisfaction at the end of the day when I've written a scene that I really like or when I write a good line of dialogue that I read out to my wife or something like that. But there's also days where it's just bloody agony and I go, 'ugh, this is such crap! Why did I think I had any talent?

It's hell writing and it's hell not writing. The only tolerable state is having just written.

Books are really, really hard to write. They represent a kind of a summit of grappling with what one really has to say

A lot of critics think I'm stupid because my sentences are so simple and my method is so direct: they think these are defects. No. The point is to write as much as you know as quickly as possible.

The way for a person to develop a style is (a) to know exactly what he wants to say, and (b) to be sure he is saying exactly that.

The secret is writing down one simple line after another.

If you can’t state your position in eight words, you don’t have a position.

One always has a better book in one's mind than one can manage to get onto paper.

I know exactly what I want to write. I do not write until I do. Usually I write it all down only once. And that goes relatively quickly, since it really depends only on how fast I type.

I don't recommend being a bachelor, but it helps if you want to write.

Writing distills, crystallizes, and clarifies thought.

When you get an idea, go and write. Don't waste it in conversation.

I actually didn't want to have control of the writing on my first album. To write, you have to have time to connect with yourself. I don't have that time right now, because I'm so busy.

I have no control over my writing. I have lots of good intentions, but no control. There's a story that wants to be told.