Writing QuotesWriting quotes all celebrate this soul stirring activity. Writing is a form of self-expression which can clear your mind of ‘garbage thoughts.’ It’s something like cleaning out a closet that’s packed to the top. Read more... There are two kinds of writers: those that make you think, and those that make you wonder. Brian Aldiss If you can't annoy somebody with what you write, I think there's little point in writing. Kingsley Amis It is the writer who might catch the imagination of young people, and plant a seed that will flower and come to fruition. Isaac Asimov Nobody asks you to do this. The world out there is not panting after another novelist. We choose it. Paul Auster A synonym is a word you use when you can’t spell the word you first thought of. Burt Bacharach Write down the thoughts of the moment. Those that come unsought for are commonly the most valuable. Francis Bacon Journal writing is a voyage to the interior. Christina Baldwin No one else can speak the words on your lips. Drench yourself in words unspoken. Live your life with arms wide open. Today is where your book begins. The rest is still unwritten. Natasha Bedingfield You never have to change anything you get up in the middle of the night to write. Saul Bellow Writing is nothing more than a guided dream. Jorge Luis Borges You don't start out writing good stuff. You start out writing crap and thinking it's good stuff, and then gradually you get better at it. That's why I say one of the most valuable traits is persistence. Octavia Butler To me, the greatest pleasure of writing is not what it's about, but the music the words make. Truman Capote Begin at the beginning and go on ‘til you come to the end then stop. Lewis Carroll Write even when you don't want to, don't much like what you're writing, and aren't writing particularly well. Agatha Christie I like to learn, but I don’t like to be taught. Winston Churchill Times are bad. Children no longer obey their parents and everyone is writing a book. Cicero I really think that anyone who’s fortunate enough to live to be over fifty years old should take some time, even if it’s just a couple of weekends, to sit down and write the story of your life, even if it’s only twenty pages, and even if it’s only for your children and grandchildren…You’ll be surprised what you find. Bill Clinton Put down everything that comes into your head and then you're a writer. But an author is one who can judge his own stuff's worth, without pity, and destroy most of it. Colette Sit down, and put down everything that comes into your head and then you're a writer. But an author is one who can judge his own stuff's worth, without pity, and destroy most of it. Colette At no time am I a quick thinker or writer: whatever I have done in science has solely been by long pondering, patience and industry. Charles Darwin The pen is the tongue of the mind. Miguel de Cervantes I write to discover what I think. Joan Didion I simply don't know how anyone can write at great speed, and only for the money's sake. Feodor Dostoevsky Write in your heart that every day is the best day of the year. Ralph Waldo Emerson At one time I thought the most important thing was talent. I think now that the young man or the young woman must possess or teach himself, training himself, in infinite patience, which is to try and to try until it comes right. He must train himself in ruthless intolerance--that is to throw away anything that is false no matter how much he might love that page or that paragraph. The most important thing is insight, that is to be--curious--to wonder, to mull, and to muse why it is that man does what he does, and if you have that, then I don't think the talent makes much difference, whether you've got it or not. William Faulkner Get it down. Take chances. It may be bad, but it's the only way you can do anything really good. William Faulkner Happy are they who don't doubt themselves and whose pens fly across the page. I myself hesitate, I falter, I become angry and fearful, my drive diminishes as my taste improves, and I brood more over an ill-suited word than I rejoice over a well-proportioned paragraph. Gustave Flaubert Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing. Benjamin Franklin A story should have a beginning, a middle, and an end...but not necessarily in that order. Jean Luc Godard Write about what disturbs you, what you fear, what you have not been willing to speak about. Be willing to be split open. Natalie Goldberg Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose, or paint can manage to escape the madness, the melancholia, the panic fear which is inherent in a human situation. Graham Greene Every writer I know has trouble writing. Joseph Heller It's none of their business that you have to learn to write. Let them think you were born that way. Ernest Hemingway Once writing has become your major vice and greatest pleasure only death can stop it Ernest Hemingway Without words, without writing and without books there would be no history, there could be no concept of humanity. Hermann Hesse These are not books, lumps of lifeless paper, but minds alive on the shelves. Gilbert Highet The discipline of writing something down is the first step toward making it happen. Lee Iacocca Be yourself. Above all. Let who you are, what you are, what you believe, shine through every sentence you write, every piece you finish. John Jakes My congratulations to you, sir. Your manuscript is both good and original; but the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good. Samuel Johnson The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it. Samuel Johnson I went for years not finishing anything. Because, of course, when you finish something you can be judged...I had poems which were re-written so many times I suspect it was just a way of avoiding sending them out. Erica Jong The writer, when he is also an artist, is someone who admits what others don’t dare reveal. Elia Kazan One writes to make a home for oneself, on paper, in time and in other's minds. Alfred Kazin The most important things are the hardest to say, because words diminish them. Stephen King Close the door. Write with no one looking over your shoulder. Don't try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say. It's the one and only thing you have to offer. Barbara Kingsolver There's a word for a writer who never gives up: published. Joe Konrath Inspiration usually comes during work, rather than before it. Madeleine L’Engle This is our goal as writers, I think: to help others have this sense of wonder, of seeing things anew, things that catch us off-guard, that break in our small bordered worlds. When this happens everything feels more spacious. Anne Lamott If you wait for inspiration, you're not a writer, but a waiter. Louis L'Amour Asking a writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamp post how it feels about dogs Ann Landers Very few people possess true artistic ability. It is therefore both unseemly and unproductive to irritate the situation by making an effort. If you have a burning, restless urge to write or paint, simply eat something sweet and the feeling will pass. Fran Lebowitz All books are either dreams or swords. You can cut, or you can drug, with words. Amy Lowell A writer is someone for whom writing is harder than for other people. Thomas Mann A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself. What a man can be, he must be. This need we call self-actualization. Abraham Maslow The only important thing in a book is the meaning it has for you. Somerset Maugham I'm not a very good writer, but I'm an excellent rewriter. James Michener Like every writer, I am asked where my work orginates, and if I knew I would go there more often to find more. Arthur Miller If there's a book you really want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it. Toni Morrison Writing is like getting married. One should never commit oneself until one is amazed at one's luck. Iris Murdoch The pages are still blank, but there is a miraculous feeling of the words being there, written in invisible ink and clamoring to become visible. Vladimir Nabakov A good writer possesses not only his own spirit but also the spirit of his friends. Friedrich Nietzsche Dancing in all its forms cannot be excluded from the curriculum of all noble education; dancing with the feet, with ideas, with words, and, need I add that one must also be able to dance with the pen? Friedrich Nietzsche The author must keep his mouth shut when his work starts to speak. Friedrich Nietzsche I am in a beautiful prison from which I can only escape by writing. Anaïs Nin The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say. Anaïs Nin Dreams are illustrations…from the book your soul is writing about you. Marsha Norman Writing became such a process of discovery that I couldn't wait to get to work in the morning: I wanted to know what I was going to say. Sharon O'Brien And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt. Sylvia Plath Everything in life is writable if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. Sylvia Plath The worst enemy of creativity is self-doubt. Sylvia Plath You write to communicate to the hearts and minds of others what's burning inside you. And we edit to let the fire show through the smoke. Arthur Polotnik Write as often as possible, not with the idea at once of getting into print, but as if you were learning an instrument. J. B. Priestley Talent is a question of quantity. Talent does ont write one page; it writes three hundred. Jules Renard Writing is a way of talking without being interrupted. Jules Renard Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depth of your heart; confess to yourself you would have to die if you were forbidden to write. Rainer Maria Rilke It is necessary to write, if the days are not to slip emptily by. How else, indeed, to clap the net over the butterfly of the moment? For the moment passes, it is forgotten; the mood is gone; life itself is gone. That is where the writer scores over his fellows: he catches the changes of his mind on the hop. Vita Sackville-West Every time you write, something valuable will occur. SARK Plant impossible gardens. Look forward to dreams. Cry during movies. Swing as high as you can on a swing set, by moonlight. Cultivate moods. Do it for love. Take lots of naps. Take moon baths. Giggle with children. Listen to old people. Entertain your inner child. Build a fort with blankets. Get wet. Hug trees. Write love letters. SARK To grow as a writer, you grow as a person. There's no way to work on one without the other. Heather Sellers The wastebasket is a writer's best friend. Isaac Bashevis Singer What things there are to write, if one could only write them! My mind is full of gleaming thought; gay moods and mysterious, moth-like meditations hover in my imagination, fanning their painted wings. But always the rarest, those streaked with azure and the deepest crimson, flutter away beyond my reach. Logan Pearsall Smith There's nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein. Walter Wellesley "Red" Smith A writer's duty is to register what it is like for him or her to be in the world. Zadie Smith Writing is the hardest way of earning a living, with the possible exception of wrestling alligators. William Saroyan The profession of book writing makes horse racing seem like a solid, stable business. John Steinbeck When I face the desolate impossibility of writing 500 pages, a sick sense of failure falls on me, and I know I can never do it. Then gradually, I write one page and then another. One day’s work is all that I can permit myself to contemplate. John Steinbeck The difficulty of literature is not to write, but to write what you mean Robert Louis Stephenson No matter what you do, somebody always imputes meaning into your books. Dr. Suess It’s never too late - in fiction or in life - to revise. Nancy Thayer Goals in writing are dreams with deadlines. Brian Tracy My books are like water; those of the great geniuses are wine. (Fortunately) everybody drinks water. Mark Twain Don't look at the world with your hands in your pockets. To write about it you have to reach out and touch it. Mark Twain I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead. Mark Twain 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. Mark Twain The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter—’tis the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning. Mark Twain The time to begin writing an article is when you have finished it to your satisfaction. By that time you begin to clearly and logically perceive what it is you really want to say. Mark Twain There are some books that refuse to be written. They stand their ground year after year and will not be persuaded. It isn't because the book is not there and worth being written -- it is only because the right form of the story does not present itself. There is only one right form for a story and if you fail to find that form the story will not tell itself. Mark Twain There was never yet an uninteresting life. Such a thing is an impossibility. Inside of the dullest exterior there is a drama, a comedy, and a tragedy. Mark Twain What a wee little part of a person's life are his acts and his words! His real life is led in his head, and is known to none but himself. All day long, the mill of his brain is grinding, and his thoughts, not those of other things, are his history. These are his life, and they are not written. Everyday would make a whole book of 80,000 words -- 365 books a year. Biographies are but the clothes and buttons of the man -- the biography of the man himself cannot be written. Mark Twain Write what you know. Mark Twain I want to write books that unlock the traffic jam in everybody's head. John Updike When we commit ourselves to writing for some part of each day we are happier, more enlightened, alive, lighthearted and generous to everyone else. Even our health improves. Brenda Veland Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart. William Wadsworth Talent is helpful in writing, but guts are absolutely necessary. Jessamyn West Writing is both mask and unveiling. E.B. White The art of art, the glory of expression and the sunshine of the light of letters, is simplicity. Walt Whitman Each has his past shut in him like the leaves of a book known to him by heart and his friends can only read the title. Virginia Woolf For most of history, Anonymous was a woman. Virginia Woolf It is worth mentioning, for future reference, that the creative power which bubbles so pleasantly in beginning a new book quiets down after a time, and one goes on more steadily. Doubts creep in. Then one becomes resigned. Determination not to give in, and the sense of an impending shape keep one at it more than anything. Virginia Woolf Writing is like sex. First you do it for love, then you do it for your friends, and then you do it for money. Virginia Woolf Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart. William Wordsworth When you use words, you're able to keep your mind alive. Writing is my way of reaffirming my own existence. Gao Xingjian If you ask me what I came to do in this world, I, an artist, I will answer you: I am here to live out loud. Emile Zola Return from Writing Quotes, Writer Quotations and Sayings about Writers to the Quotes Listed by Subject page
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