Short Writing Quotes:

Easy reading is damn hard writing.

- Nathaniel Hawthorne

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

Not that the story need be long, but it will take a long while to make it short.

- Henry David Thoreau

topic: Writing, Long, Needs, Novel Writing, Story Writers

No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader.

- Ernest Hemingway

source: "The Figure a Poem Makes". Book by Ernest Hemingway, 1939.

topic: Reading, Book, Writing, Story Writers, Story Writing

Find the key emotion; this may be all you need know to find your short story.

- F. Scott Fitzgerald

topic: Writing, Keys, Needs, Story Writers, Story Writing

There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.

- W. Somerset Maugham

topic: Writing, Real Talk, Three, Novel Writing, Inspiration 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

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 learn by writing short stories. Keep writing short stories. The money's in novels, but writing short stories keeps your writing lean and pointed.

- Larry Niven

topic: Writing, Stories, Novel, Novel Writing, Inspiration To Write

Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout with some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.

- George Orwell

topic: Struggle, Book, Writing, Inspiration To Write, Writing Advice

A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.

- Gilbert K. Chesterton

topic: Hero, Book, Reading, Novel Writing, Writing Advice

To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme.

- Herman Melville

topic: Book, Writing, Produce, Writing Advice, Writing Short

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

We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect.

- Anais Nin

topic: Love, Writing, Heart, Writing Advice, Why We Write

Short stories can be rather stark and bare unless you put in the right details. Details make stories human, and the more human a story can be, the better.

- V. S. Pritchett

topic: Writing, Stories, Details, Story Writers, Story Writing

My task, which I am trying to achieve is, by the power of the written word, to make you hear, to make you feel--it is, before all, to make you see.

- Joseph Conrad

source: The Nigger of the Narcissus preface (1897)

topic: Writing, Trying, Tasks, Power Of Words, Fiction Writers

No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader.

- Robert Frost

topic: Book, Reading, Writing, Great Writing, Real Talk

Details make stories human, and the more human a story can be, the better.

- Ernest Hemingway

topic: Writing, Story Writers, Details, Story Writing, Writing Short Stories

Writing is turning one's worst moments into money.

- J. P. Donleavy

source: Quoted in Playboy, May 1979

topic: Writing, Moments, Worst, Writing Fiction, Writing Short

Read, read read. Read everything.

- William Faulkner

topic: Writing, Famous Writers, Writers Reading, Inspiring Writing, Reading And Writing

Tomorrow may be hell, but today was a good writing day, and on the good writing days nothing else matters.

- Neil Gaiman

topic: Writing, May, Matter, Writing Advice, Good Writers

If there's a book you really want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.

- Toni Morrison

topic: Inspirational, Happiness, Attitude, Joy Of Reading, Creative Writing

There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written.

- Oscar Wilde

topic: Book, Reading, Writing, Great Writing, Libraries Books And Reading

Science fiction writers, I am sorry to say, really do not know anything.

- Philip K. Dick

topic: Sorry, Writing, Fiction, Writing By Writers, Writing Short

Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.

- Oscar Wilde

topic: Book, Literature, Wells, Great Writing, Libraries Books And Reading

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

topic: Writing, Editors, Crafts, Cursing, Creative Writing

Keep your paragraphs short. Writing is visual - it catches the eye before it has a chance to catch the brain.

- William Zinsser

topic: Writing, Eye, Brain, Paragraph, Short Writing