David McCullough Quotes

Good writing is the hardest form of thinking.

... writing letters is thinking, just as talking to you is thinking.

Writing is always a way, for me, of coming to some sort of understanding that I can't reach otherwise.It forces you to think. It forces you to work the thing through. Nothing comes to us out of the blue, very easily.

People who think well, write well

Of writing well the source and fountainhead is wise thinking.

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

You can't be a good writer without being a good thinker.

The secret of all good writing is sound judgment.

Writing is thinking in slow motion.

Words are how people think. When you misuse words, you diminish your ability to think clearly and truthfully.

You can't fix a problem if you don't have the words to describe it. You can't even think about it clearly.

I write - and talk - in order to find out what I think.

You can't write well what you don't read for pleasure. If it doesn't entertain you, it's not going to entertain anyone else.

To write well it is first necessary to have something to say.

To make yourself understood you have to think plain and write plain.

I really think that reading is just as important as writing when you're trying to be a writer because it's the only apprenticeship we have, it's the only way of learning how to write a story.

Good writing does not succeed or fail on the strength of its ability to persuade. It succeeds or fails on the strength of its ability to engage you, to make you think, to give you a glimpse into someone else's head.

Too often, I think, children are required to write before they have anything to say. Teach them to think and read and talk without self-repression, and they will write because they cannot help it.

By writing quickly we are not brought to write well, but by writing well we are brought to write quickly.

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

Five common traits of good writers: (1) They have something to say. (2) They read widely and have done so since childhood. (3) They possess what Isaac Asimov calls a "capacity for clear thought," able to go from point to point in an orderly sequence, an A to Z approach. (4) They're geniuses at putting their emotions into words. (5) They possess an insatiable curiosity, constantly asking Why and How.

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.

If you write well, you don't have to dress funny.

Never think, because you cannot write a letter easily, that it is better not to write at all. The most awkward note imaginable is better than none.

Writing well is at one and the same time good thinking, good feeling, and good expression; it is having wit, soul, and taste, all together.