WaPo's neologism contest winners - blog | 888-743-9939

Blog

The Washington Post’s neologism contest winners.

December 2, 2019May 9, 2025 2041

I came across this today and broke up laughing. These are seriously clever! Thanks to the Washington Post. I wasn’t aware of their neologism contest, but I am now! Read and enjoy. Pass it along.

A blank piece of paper is God’s way of telling us how hard it to be God.

Sidney Sheldon

Keep a small can of WD-40 on your desk — away from any open flames — to remind yourself that if you don’t write daily, you will get rusty.

George Singleton

It took me fifteen years to discover I had no talent for writing, but I couldn’t give it up because by that time I was too famous.

Robert Benchley

I have a structured songwriting process. I start with the music and try to come up with musical ideas, then the melody, then the hook, and the lyrics come last.

John Legend

A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.

G.K. Chesterton

In Hollywood, the woods are full of people that learned to write but evidently can’t read. If they could read their stuff, they’d stop writing.

Will Rogers

It always comes down to characters, and individual stories about courage.

Steven Bochco

To me, movies and music go hand in hand. When I’m writing a script, one of the first things I do is find the music I’m going to play for the opening sequence.

Quentin Tarantino

My own experience is that once a story has been written, one has to cross out the beginning and the end. It is there that we authors do most of our lying.

Anton Chekhov

Just don’t be boring!

Robert Liebmann

I get up in the morning, torture a typewriter until it screams, then stop.

Clarence Budington Kelland

Don’t annoy an author, you’ll end up in their book and you won’t look good.

Lawrence Wray

No one can write decently who is distrustful of the reader’s intelligence or whose attitude is patronizing.

E. B. White

It is only natural to pattern yourself after someone. But you can’t just copy someone. If you like someone’s work, the important thing is to be exposed to everything that person has been exposed to.

Bob Dylan

You can always edit a bad page. You can’t edit a blank page.

Jodi Picoult

Good instincts usually tell you what to do long before your head has figured it out.

Michael Burke

If you start with a bang, you won’t end with a whimper.

T.S. Eliot

I have long felt that any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has just put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae or banana split.

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr

Have something to say, and say it as clearly as you can. That is the only secret.

Matthew Arnold

Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamppost how it feels about dogs.