Business Writing Quotes

That folk music led to learning to play, and making things up led to what turns out to be the most lucrative part of the music business - writing, because you get paid every time that song gets played.

On the simplest level, telecommuting makes it harder for people to have the kinds of informal interactions that are crucial to the way knowledge moves through an organization. The role that hallway chat plays in driving new ideas has become a cliche of business writing, but that doesn't make it less true.

A pathological business, writing, don't you think? Just look what a writer actually does: all that unnatural tense squatting and hunching, all those rituals: pathological!

Keep things informal. Talking is the natural way to do business. Writing is great for keeping records and putting down details, but talk generates ideas. Great things come from out luncheon meetings which consist of a sandwich, a cup of soup, and a good idea or two. No martinis.

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.

I suffer as always from the fear of putting down the first line. It is amazing the terrors, the magics, the prayers, the straitening shyness that assail one. It is as though the words were not only indelible but that they spread out like dye in water and color everything around them. A strange and mystic business, writing.

Publishing is a business. Writing may be art, but publishing, when all is said and done, comes down to dollars.

Developing excellent COMMUNICATION skills is absolutely essential to effective leadership. The leader must be able to share knowledge and ideas to transmit a sense of urgency and enthusiasm to others. If a leader can't get a message across clearly and motivate others to act on it, then having a message doesn't even matter.

You can have brilliant ideas, but if you can't get them across, your ideas won't get you anywhere. Lee Iacocca Love is the irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired.

Actually, writers have no business writing about their own works. They either wax conceited, saying things like: 'My brilliance is possibly most apparent in my dazzling short story, "The Cookiepants Hypotenuse."' Or else they get unbearably cutesy: 'My cat Ootsywootums has given me all my best ideas, hasn't oo, squeezums?

The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.

The profession of book writing makes horse racing seem like a solid, stable business.

It's a dismally lonely business, writing.

Get it down. Take chances. It may be bad, but that's the only way you can do anything really good.

Substitute "damn" every time you're inclined to write "very"; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.

I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.

You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.

I will never stop writing. People often ask when I will retire, but I say it's none of their business. Writing defines who I am. I love the feeling of holding a finished book in my hands, and then I can't wait to start the great adventure of writing the next one.

You can have brilliant ideas, but if you can't get them across, your ideas won't get you anywhere.

Imagination is more important than knowledge.

The reason business writing is horrible is that people are afraid. Afraid to say what they mean, because they might be criticized for it. Afraid to be misunderstood, to be accused of saying what they didn't mean, because they might be criticized for it.