Writers And Writing Quotes:

A professional writer is an amateur who didn't quit.

- Richard Bach

topic: Perseverance, Writing, Quitting, Jonathan Livingston Seagull, Jonathan Seagull

Planning to write is not writing. Outlining, researching, talking to people about what you're doing, none of that is writing. Writing is writing.

- E. L. Doctorow

source: E. L. Doctorow, Christopher D. Morris (1999). “Conversations with E.L. Doctorow”, p.9, Univ. Press of Mississippi

topic: Inspiration, Writing, Talking, Outlining, Writer's Block

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

Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.

- E. L. Doctorow

topic: Writing, Journey, Night, Novel Writing, Learning How To Write

All the words I use in my stories can be found in the dictionary-it's just a matter of arranging them into the right sentences.

- W. Somerset Maugham

topic: Writing, Use, Matter, Story Writers, Story Writing

The art of writing is the art of discovering what you believe.

- Gustave Flaubert

topic: Inspirational, Life, Art, Writer's Block, Writers And Writing

Proofread carefully to see if you any words out.

- Dave Barry

topic: God, Writing, Stupidity, Writers And Writing, Writing Humor

Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.

- William Wordsworth

source: William Wordsworth, Dorothy Wordsworth, Ernest De Selincourt, Alan G. Hill, Chester Linn Shaver (1967). “The Letters of William and Dorothy Wordsworth: Volume VIII. A Supplement of New Letters”, p.51, Oxford University Press on Demand

topic: Life, Beauty, Beautiful, Inspiration And Creativity, Writing Workshop

The faster I write the better my output. If I'm going slow, I'm in trouble. It means I'm pushing the words instead of being pulled by them.

- Raymond Chandler

source: Raymond Chandler, Dorothy Gardiner, Kathrine Sorley Walker (1977). “Raymond Chandler Speaking”, p.216, Univ of California Press

topic: Writing, Mean, Pushing, Creative Writing, Writers And Writing

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

Writing is easy. All you do is stare at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead.

- Gene Fowler

source: Attributed without citation in Janice R. Matthews et al. "Successful Scientific Writing", p. 53, 2000.

topic: Inspirational, Writing, Blood, Story Writers, Writing Advice

Most writers can write books faster than publishers can write checks.

- Richard Curtis

topic: Book, Writing, Faster, Writers And Writing

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

There is probably no hell for authors in the next world - they suffer so much from critics and publishers in this.

- Christian Nestell Bovee

topic: Writing, Suffering, World, Successful Writing, Writers And Writing

The reader has certain rights. He bought your story. Think of this as an implicit contract. He's entitled to be entertained, instructed, amused; maybe all three. If he quits in the middle, or puts the book down feeling his time has been wasted, you're in violation.

- Larry Niven

topic: Book, Writing, Thinking, Reading And Writing, Writers And Writing

Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life, and it is the main obstacle between you and a shitty first draft. I think perfectionism is based on the obsessive belief that if you run carefully enough, hitting each stepping-stone just right, you won't have to die. The truth is that you will die anyway and that a lot of people who aren't even looking at their feet are going to do a whole lot better than you, and have a lot more fun while they're doing it.

- Anne Lamott

topic: Running, Fun, Writing, Great Writing, Writing Advice

It is advantageous to an author that his book should be attacked as well as praised. Fame is a shuttlecock. If it be struck at one end of the room, it will soon fall to the ground. To keep it up, it must be struck at both ends.

- Samuel Johnson

topic: Book, Fall, Writing, Writers And Writing, Shuttlecock

Writing comes more easily if you have something to say.

- Sholem Asch

topic: Writing, Creative Writing, Writers And Writing

You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write.

- Saul Bellow

topic: Inspirational, Change, Inspiring, Inspiration To Write, Middle Of The Night

You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.

- Ray Bradbury

topic: Inspirational, Writing, Reality, Inspiring Writing, Writers And Writing

Finishing a book is just like you took a child out in the back yard and shot it.

- Truman Capote

topic: Children, Book, Writing, Writers And Writing, Finishing A Book

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

Everybody walks past a thousand story ideas every day. The good writers are the ones who see five or six of them. Most people don't see any.

- Orson Scott Card

topic: Writing, Past, Ideas, Novel Writing, Inspiration To Write

The unread story is not a story; it is little black marks on wood pulp. The reader, reading it, makes it live: a live thing, a story.

- Ursula K. Le Guin

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

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

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

source: Mark Twain, Albert Bigelow Paine (1971). “Mark Twain's notebook”, Scholarly Pr

topic: Writing, Want, Satisfaction, Writers And Writing, Writing By Writers

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

Easy reading is damn hard writing.

- Nathaniel Hawthorne

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

A writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.

- Thomas Mann

source: "Essays of Three Decades". Book by Thomas Mann, 1942.

topic: Writing, People, Difficult, Creative Writing, Writing Advice

The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.

- Mark Twain

topic: Inspirational, Funny, Book, Creative Writing, Story Writers

The road to hell is paved with adverbs.

- Stephen King

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

Don't try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say.

- Barbara Kingsolver

topic: People, Trying, Want, Creative People, Inspiration And Creativity

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

The greatest part of a writer's time is spent in reading in order to write. A man will turn over half a library to make a book.

- Samuel Johnson

topic: Time, Powerful, Book, Library Research, Inspiring Writing

It took me fifteen years to discover I had no talent for writing, but I couldn't give it up because by that time I was too famous.

- Robert Benchley

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