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The writer is a writer because he cannot help it. It is a compulsion.

Edna Ferber

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Edna Ferber
Age: 80 †
Born: 1887
Born: August 15
Died: 1968
Died: April 16
Journalist
Novelist
Playwright
Screenwriter
Writer
Appleton
Wisconsin
Cannot
Compulsion
Writer
Help
Helping

More quotes by Edna Ferber

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But almost any place is Baghdad if you don't know what will happen in it.
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Writing is not an amusing occupation. It is a combination of ditch-digging, mountain-climbing, treadmill and childbirth.
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You lose in the end unless you know how the wheel is fixed or can fix it yourself.
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Roast Beef, Medium, is not only a food. It is a philosophy. ... Roast Beef, Medium, is safe, and sane, and sure.
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In New York the sky is bluer, and the grass is greener, and the girls are prettier, and the steaks are thicker, and the buildings are higher, and the streets are wider, and the air is finer, than the sky, or the grass, or the girls, or the steaks, or the air of any place else in the world.
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I like any place that isn't here.
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Life can't ever really defeat a writer who is in love with writing, for life itself is a writer's lover until death – fascinating, cruel, lavish, warm, cold, treacherous, constant.
Edna Ferber
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I'm tired of hearing you men say that this and that and the other isn't woman's work. Any work is woman's work that a woman can do well.
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It sounds so far away and different. I like different places. I like any places that isn't here.
Edna Ferber
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Men often marry their mothers.
Edna Ferber
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Anything can have happened in Oklahoma. Practically everything has.
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Writing, to be memorable, must be done in a state of impassioned serenity.
Edna Ferber
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A writer's working hours are his waking hours. He is working as long as he is conscious and frequently when he isn't.
Edna Ferber
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Writers should be read but not seen. Rarely are they a winsome sight.
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Living the past is a dull and lonely business looking back strains the neck muscles, causing you to bump into people not going your way.
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To be alive is a fine thing. It is the finest thing in the world, though hazardous. It is a unique thing. It happens only once in a lifetime. To be alive, to know consciously that you are alive, and to relish that knowledge -- this is a kind of magic. Or it may be a kind of madness, exhilarating but harmless.
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A story must simmer in its own juice for months or even years before it's ready to serve.
Edna Ferber
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I never would just open a door and walk through, I had to bust it down for the hell of it. I just naturally liked doing things the hard way.
Edna Ferber
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There is an interesting resemblance in the speeches of dictators, no matter what country they may hail from or what language they may speak.
Edna Ferber
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Any garment which is cut to fit you is much more becoming, even if it is not so splendid as a garment which has been cut to fit somebody not of your stature.
Edna Ferber