Writing

“I have but one aim and end in these papers—to tell you the truth about London, its life and manners.”

“prose is toil, while poetry is play”

“لم آتِ في حياتي أمرًا إدًّا ولا ارتكبت منكرًا، أنظم الشعر وأودعه عصارة شعوري وتفكيري، وأجعله منبرًا أدافع منه عما يتراءى لي أنه الحق، غير حاسب لمخالفة الناس إياي حسابًا.”

“Liber hic, Lector candide, posthumus P. Matthaei Riccii partus.”

“Everything I write is either something I’ve lived or something I’ve seen closely.”

“I don't think you decide to become a writer — I think it's decided for you. I think it's an affliction.”

“Las letras mías ya están escritas en la calle.”

“No me lisonjeo de haber hecho una obra perfecta.”

“I will go anywhere and write with anybody.”

“The conclusion of a poem is the most important part and hardest to write.”

“I am indeed much more proud of his long-continued Friendship, than I should be of the Fame of being thought the Author of any Writings which he himself is capable of producing.”

“we also wrote in Arabic the explanation of the Orthodox Confession”

“Writing a novel is a socially approved way of sitting in a corner and fantasizing.”

“Otherwise, I’m just a guy with a notebook.”

“Por donde me pareció darle nombre de Historia natural y moral de las Indias, abrazando con este intento ambas cosas.”

“As a writer, my work demands this liberation if I am to see more clearly, to understand more wholly.”

“I never feel that I have to be true to history: I have to be true to my story.”

“I believe there is something that can be passed between writers, between generations—that changes in time but not in essentials.”