source: Quoted in Reader's Digest, Sept. 1949. According to Nigel Rees, Cassell's Humorous Quotations, the following appeared in Punch in 1924: " 'It took me nearly ten years to learn that I couldn't write.' 'I suppose you gave it up then?' 'Oh, no! By that time I had a reputation established.' " The issue referred to by Rees is 6 Feb., and the cartoonist is R. Curry.

topic: Time, Work, Writing, Inspiration To Write, Successful Writing

Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.

- Anton Chekhov

topic: Inspirational, Moon, Glasses, Inspiration To Write, Broken Glass

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

topic: Life, Sad, Creativity, Self-doubt, Improvising

If you don't have the time to read, you don't have the time or the tools to write.

- Stephen King

topic: Writing, Caring, Tools, Novel Writing, Creative Writing

Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.

- Groucho Marx

source: "Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

topic: Funny, Friendship, Education, Joy Of Reading, Inspirational Dog

Easy reading is damn hard writing.

- Nathaniel Hawthorne

topic: Reading, Writing, Easy, Journal Writing, Inspiration To Write

There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.

- Maya Angelou

topic: Inspirational, Moving On, Powerful, Novel Writing, Courage To Change

The road to hell is paved with works-in-progress.

- Philip Roth

topic: Writing, Progress, Hell, Swedish, Inspiration To Write

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

- Samuel Johnson

source: Statement on April 14, 1775. "Life of Samuel Johnson". Book by James Boswell. Volume II, 1791.

topic: Wisdom, Writing, Procrastination, Swedish, Inspiration To Write

The road to hell is paved with leeks and potatoes

- Julie Powell

topic: Potatoes, Hell, Swedish, Inspiration To Write, Writing Fiction

The road to Hell is paved with unbought stuffed dogs.

- Ernest Hemingway

source: Ernest Hemingway (2016). “The Sun Also Rises”, p.37, Hamilton Books

topic: Dog, Writing, Sisterhood, Swedish, Inspiration To Write

The road to hell is paved with adverbs.

- Stephen King

topic: Writing, Hell, Adverbs, Swedish, Inspiration To Write

There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.

- Ernest Hemingway

topic: Writing, Bad Ass, Typewriters, Inspiration To Write, Starting To Write

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

- Jack London

source: Jack London (2015). “Jack London on Adventure: Words of Wisdom from an Expert Adventurer”, p.5, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

topic: Funny, Witty, Life Changing, Creativeness, Creative People

I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train.

- Oscar Wilde

topic: Funny, Travel, Book, Inspirational Adventure, Inspirational Adventure Time

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

- Thomas Jefferson

topic: Inspirational, Motivational, Teaching, Speaking And Writing, Inspiration To Write

Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere.

- Anne Lamott

topic: Writing, Effort, Needs, Starting To Write, Great Writing

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.

- Anton Chekhov

topic: Lying, Writing, Stories, Novel Writing, Story Writers

As to the adjective: when in doubt, strike it out.

- Mark Twain

topic: Writing, Doubt, Adjectives, Writing Words, Written Language

People tend to forget that my presence runs counter to their best interests. And it always does. That is one last thing to remember. Writers are always selling somebody out.

- Joan Didion

topic: Running, People, Lasts, Writing By Writers, Famous Writers

It's none of their business that you have to learn how to write. Let them think you were born that way.

- Ernest Hemingway

topic: Business, Writing, Thinking, Novel Writing, Inspiration To Write

Think like a wise man but communicate in the language of the people.

- William Butler Yeats

topic: Inspirational, Wise, Teamwork, Language And Communication, Language Skills

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

topic: Life, Being Alone, Writing, Creative People, Inspiration To Write

Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards.

- Robert A. Heinlein

topic: Writing, Hands, Ashamed, Famous Writers, Writing From Famous Authors

That famous writer’s block is a myth as far as I’m concerned. I think bad writers must have a great difficulty writing. They don’t want to do it. They have become writers out of reasons of ambition. It must be a great strain to them to make marks on a page when they really have nothing much to say, and don’t enjoy doing it. I’m not so sure what I have to say but I certainly enjoy making sentences.

- Gore Vidal

source: FaceBook post by Gore Vidal from Aug 06, 2012

topic: Block, Writing, Ambition, Writers Block, Famous Writers

I know of only one country, at least to my knowledge, which has a dissident culture where leading figures, I mean, the most famous writers, journalists, academics and so on, are not only critical of state policy, but are constantly carrying out civil disobedience and risking imprisonment and often being imprisoned, standing up for people's rights. That's Turkey.

- Noam Chomsky

source: Source: theanarchistlibrary.org

topic: Country, Mean, Rights, Famous Writers

Finally and most important of all, authenticity means that you must do what you do the way you do it and allow everyone else the same courtesy. There was a time I wanted to be like every famous writer that ever lived. I tried to copy styles, reframe information, use similar artwork. I almost drove myself crazy! Now I just do what I do. I have mentors. There are people whose work I admire, but I write the way I write. I eat the way I eat. I dress the way I dress. I can't believe that God made us each so unique only to have us do everything the same way.

- Iyanla Vanzant

source: Iyanla Vanzant (2012). “One Day My Soul Just Opened Up: 40 Days And 40 Nights Towards Spiritual Strength And Personal Growth”, p.243, Simon and Schuster

topic: Crazy, Believe, Writing, Famous Writers, Very Famous

Being a famous writer is a little like being a tall dwarf. You're on the edge of normality.

- John Updike

topic: Dwarves, Littles, Fame, Famous Writers

My office walls are covered with autographs of famous writers - it's what my children call my 'dead author wall.' I have signatures from Mark Twain, Earnest Hemingway, Jack London, Harriett Beecher Stowe, Pearl Buck, Charles Dickens, Rudyard Kipling, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, to name a few.

- Debbie Macomber

topic: Children, Wall, Names, Famous Writers, Autographs

I would want to travel the world and write about it. To be a famous writer.

- Shantel VanSanten

source: Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

topic: Writing, World, Want, Famous Writers

The best young writers are convinced they need blurbs from famous writers before an editor will even read the first page of a manuscript. If this is true, then the editorial system that prevails today stinks. And let's start reforming it.

- Diane Wakoski

topic: Today, Famous Writers, Young Writers

I learned that famous writers are people with foibles like anyone else and this helped me realize reaching their level of notoriety wasn't impossible.

- Kirby Wright

source: "Hawaii, Mortuaries, And Saving Kurt Vonnegut: An Interview With Kirby Wright". Interview with George Wallace, www.greatweatherformedia.com. September 5, 2013.

topic: People, Levels, Impossible, Notoriety, Famous Writers

I thought if only I had a keen, shapely bone structure to my face or could discuss politics shrewdly or was a famous writer Constantin might find me interesting enough to sleep with. And then I wondered if as soon as he came to like me he would sink into ordinariness, and if as soon as he came to love me I would find fault, the way I did with Buddy Willard and the boys before him.

- Sylvia Plath

source: Sylvia Plath (2016). “The Bell Jar”, p.44, Hamilton Books

topic: Sleep, Boys, Interesting, Ordinariness, Famous Writers

If you want help in starting to write memoirs, you don't want to fall into the clutches of a famous writer who has been hired to teach at a writing workshop solely because of his name's ability to attract students, rather than because of any teaching skill. You should not have to grapple with someone who secretly thinks you should be writing about his life rather than your own.

- Judith Barrington

source: Judith Barrington (2002). “Writing the Memoir”

topic: Fall, Teaching, Writing, Writing Workshop, Starting To Write

The routines of almost all famous writers, from Charles Darwin to John Grisham, similarly emphasise specific starting times, or number of hours worked, or words written. Such rituals provide a structure to work in, whether or not the feeling of motivation or inspiration happens to be present. They let people work alongside negative or positive emotions, instead of getting distracted by the effort of cultivating only positive ones. ‘Inspiration is for amateurs,’ the artist Chuck Close once memorably observed. ‘The rest of us just show up and get to work.

- Oliver Burkeman

topic: Motivation, Inspiration, Artist, Famous Writers, Positive Emotions