Because every
story begins
with words

video david conley playwright screenwriter

Video: Meet David Conley, playwright & screenwriter.

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

T.S. Eliot

What I loved most about calling myself a reporter was that it gave me an excuse to show up anyplace.

Jeanette Walls

Writers aren’t people exactly. Or, if they’re any good, they’re a whole lot of people trying so hard to be one person.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Plot is, I think, the good writer’s last resort and the dullard’s first choice.

Stephen King

Just don’t be boring!

Robert Liebmann

Biography should be written by an acute enemy.

Arthur Balfour

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

Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.

E. L. Doctorow

When writing a novel, that’s pretty much entirely what life turns into: “House burned down. Car stolen. Cat exploded. Did 1,500 easy words, so all in all it was a pretty good day.”

Neil Gaiman

If you haven’t got an idea, start a story anyway. You can always throw it away, and maybe by the time you get to the fourth page you will have an idea, and you’ll only have to throw away the first three pages.

William C. Gault

Writing has laws of perspective, of light and shade, just as painting does, or music. If you are born knowing them, fine. If not, learn them. Then rearrange the rules to suit yourself.

Truman Capote Quote

The road to ignorance is paved with good editors.

George Bernard Shaw

It is perfectly okay to write garbage — as long as you edit brilliantly.

C. J. Cherryh

Do you know what a playwright is? A playwright is someone who lets his guts hang out on the stage.

Edward Albee

Read a thousand books and your words will flow like a river.

Lisa See

Anecdotes don’t make good stories. Generally, I dig down underneath them so far that the story that finally comes out is not what people thought their anecdotes were about.

Alice Munro

My aim is to put down what I see and what I feel in the best and simplest way I can tell it.

Ernest Hemingway

You may be able to take a break from writing, but you won’t be able to take a break from being a writer.

Stephen Leigh

Stories are never too long or too short. They’re too interesting or too boring.

William Shawn

The character that lasts is an ordinary guy with some extraordinary qualities.

Raymond Chandler