Screenwriting

1. "Writer’s block is a fancy term made up by whiners so they can have an excuse to drink alcohol."
   STEVE MARTIN
2. "What’s this business about being a writer? It’s just putting one word after another."
   IRVING THALBERG
3. "At least 32 writers contributed to the script of The Flintstones. That’s more than it took to sign the American Declaration of Independence."
   CHRISTOPHER TOOKEY
4. "The first draft of anything is shit."
   ERNEST HEMINGWAY
5. "They ruin your stories. They massacre your ideas. They prostitute your art. They trample on your pride. And what do you get for it? A fortune."
   ANONYMOUS SCREENWRITER

Literature

1. "Dear Editor – What I have written you is a damn good story. If you have any comments, write them on the back of a cheque."
   ERLE STANLEY GARDNER
2. " In America, only the succesful writer is important; in France, all writers are important; in England, no writer is important; and in Australia, you have to explain what a writer is."
   GEOFFREY COTTRELL
3. " I asked my publisher what would happen if he sold all the copies of my book he had printed. He said: “I’ll just print another ten.”
   ERIC SYKES
4. “…one of the dullest speeches I ever heard. The Agee woman told us for three-quarters of an hour how she came to write her beastly book when a simple apology was all that was required…" P.G. WODEHOUSE
5. "That’s not writing – that’s typing."
   TRUMAN CAPOTE

Journalism

1. "Journalism is literature in a hurry. "
   MATTHEW ARNOLD
2. "You cannot hope to bribe or twist Thank God, the British journalist. But seeing what the man will do unbribed There’s no occasion to."
   HUMBERT WOLFE
3. "An editor is one who separates the wheat from the chaff and prints the chaff."
   ADLAI STEVENSON
4. "Rock journalism is people who can’t write interviewing people who can’t talk for people who can’t read."
   FRANK ZAPPA
5. "Julius Caesar invades Britain:
   
   The Sun
   Veni, vidi, gotcha
   
   Financial Times
   FT Index up 423 points on expectation of huge road-building scheme."
   
   I'M SORRY I HAVEN'T A CLUE (BBC)

Business writing

1. "The e-mail of the species is deadlier than the mail."
   STEPHEN FRY
2. "Never confuse a memo with reality."
   TITLE OF A BOOK
3. "One day [FBI chief, J. Edgar Hoover] received [a memo] whose margins were too small. In big, red letters, he scrawled an angry warning across the top: Watch the borders! The next morning, his frightened assistants transferred 200 agents to Canada and Mexico."
   EXECUTIVE’S BOOK OF QUOTATIONS (Vitullo-Martin and Moskin)
4. "If you can’t write your idea on the back of my calling card, you don’t have a clear idea."
   DANIEL BALASCO
5. " When British Gas sent out its first dividend statement to shareholders, it was so unclear that 10 000 [people] thought it was a bill and sent a cheque. It is just not good enough."
   THE INDEPENDENT (22 Oct 1997)

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