Writing Words Quotes:

Words - so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them.

- Nathaniel Hawthorne

source: 1847; quoted by propagandist and language maven William Safire, New York Times Magazine, 13 December 1998.

topic: Honesty, Integrity, Writing, Creative Writing, Power Of Words

It is with words as with sunbeams-the more they are condensed, the deeper they burn.

- Robert Southey

source: "A Dictionary of Thoughts: Being a Cyclopedia of Laconic Quotations from the Best Authors of the World, Both Ancient and Modern" ed. by Tryon Edwards, F. B. Dickerson Company, (p. 52), 1908.

topic: Happiness, Sunbeams, Deeper, Language Words, Writing By Writers

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

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

The road to hell is paved with adverbs.

- Stephen King

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

Don't use words too big for the subject. Don't say 'infinitely' when you mean 'very'; otherwise you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite.

- C. S. Lewis

topic: Communication, Writing, Mean, Mean Words, Means Of Communication

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

- Mark Twain

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

A synonym is a word you use when you can't spell the other one.

- Baltasar Gracian

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

topic: Writing, Use, Synonym, Writing Words

Writing isn't about making money, getting famous, getting dates, getting laid, or making friends. In the end, it's about enriching the lives of those who will read your work, and enriching your own life, as well. It's about getting up, getting well, and getting over. Getting happy, okay? Getting happy.

- Stephen King

topic: Get Well, Writing, Making Friends, Creative Writing, Great Writing

To get the right word in the right place is a rare achievement. To condense the diffused light of a page of thought into the luminous flash of a single sentence, is worthy to rank as a prize composition just by itself...Anybody can have ideas--the difficulty is to express them without squandering a quire of paper on an idea that ought to be reduced to one glittering paragraph.

- Mark Twain

topic: Writing, Light, Ideas, Squandering, Difficulty Of Writing

I love writing. I love the swirl and swing of words as they tangle with human emotions.

- James A. Michener

source: Ernest Hemingway, James A. Michener (1986). “The dangerous summer”, Scribner Book Company

topic: Writing, Swings, Emotion, Story Writing, Swirls

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

Speak properly, and in as few words as you can, but always plainly; for the end of speech is not ostentation, but to be understood.

- William Penn

source: William Penn (1792). “Fruits of Solitude: In Reflections and Maxims Relating to the Conduct of Human Life”, p.130

topic: Writing, Language Words, Plain Language, Ostentation, Writing Words

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

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 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 leeks and potatoes

- Julie Powell

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

Any one who wishes to become a good writer should endeavour, before he allows himself to be tempted by the more showy qualities, to be direct, simple, brief, vigorous, and lucid.

- Henry Watson Fowler

source: Henry Watson Fowler, Francis George Fowler (1931). “The King's English”, Oxford University Press

topic: Writing, Simple, Quality, Showy, Writing Words

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

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

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

The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns, as it were, instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish squirting out ink.

- George Orwell

topic: Truth, Real, Long, Insincerity, Language Words

Proofread carefully to see if you any words out.

- Dave Barry

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

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

He that uses many words for explaining any subject, doth, like the cuttlefish, hide himself for the most part in his own ink.

- John Ray

topic: Writing, Ink, Use, Using Words, Writing Words

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

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

- Philip Roth

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

No man means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought is viscous.

- Henry Adams

source: The Education of Henry Adams ch. 31 (1907)

topic: Truth, Mean, Men, Mean Words, Language Words

I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.

- Jack London

source: Quoted in Bulletin (San Francisco), 2 Dec. 1916.

topic: Inspirational, Life, Ambition, Blazing, Inspiration To Write

I try to leave out the parts readers skip.

- Elmore Leonard

topic: Trying, Reader, Skip, Inspiring Writing, Writer's Block

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

Some editors are failed writers, but so are most writers.

- T. S. Eliot

topic: Witty, Humorous, Writing, Great Writing, Writing And Thinking

Easy reading is damn hard writing.

- Nathaniel Hawthorne

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

A synonym is a word you use when you can't spell the word you first thought of.

- Burt Bacharach

topic: Funny, Sarcasm, Use, Writing Words, Synonym

Here’s what I learned: First thing in the morning, before I have drowned myself in coffee, while I still have that sleepy brain I used to believe was useless — that is the best brain for creative writing. Words come pouring out easily while my head still feels as if it is full of ground fog, wrapped in flannel and gauze, and surrounded by a hive of humming, velvety sleep bees.

- Merrill Markoe

topic: Morning, Coffee, Believe, Flannels, Humming

You can't be blocked if you just keep on writing words. Any words. People who get 'blocked' make the mistake of thinking they have to write good words.

- Martha Grimes

source: Martha Grimes (2004). “Foul Matter”, p.51, Penguin

topic: Mistake, Writing, Thinking, Writing Words, Good Words

I get drunk writing words. I don't drink or do drugs, but I get so carried away with writing that I get inebriated from it.

- John Shirley

topic: Writing, Drunk, Drug, Writing Words

For me, the intent in a song is to sing it. I compose songs, meaning I'm writing words to be set to music; I'm intending it to not be recited. I'm a singer-songwriter, and I'm a poet, and there really isn't a contradiction, at least for me.

- Cornelius Eady

source: "Breaking into Song: An Interview with Cornelius Eady". Interview with Alexis Orgera, www.anmly.org.

topic: Song, Writing, Singers, Writing Words

The idea of political content is irrelevant. Content is irrelevant. I always tell my students, "Never forget you're writing words! You know, word one, word two, word three, word four. The words have to be organized. Nothing else does."

- Dave Hickey

source: Interview with Sheila Heti, believermag.com. November 1, 2007.

topic: Writing, Ideas, Two, Writing Words, Three Words

The translator ... Peculiar outcast, ghost in the world of literature, recreating in another form something already created, creating and not creating, writing words that are his own and not his own, writing a work not original to him, composing with utmost pains and without recognition of his pains or the fact that the composition really is his own.

- Lydia Davis

topic: Pain, Writing, Creating, Writing Words

In good writing, words become one with things.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

topic: Writing, Good Writing, Writing Words

Once, lovers on faraway shores sat by candlelight and dipped ink to parchment, writing words that could not be erased. They took an evening to compose their thoughts, maybe the next evening as well.

- Mitch Albom

topic: Writing, Next, Evening, Candlelight, Writing Words

It took me to about maybe 16, 17 or 18 or something to realise I was absolutely useless at everything else except for playing guitar and writing words

- Noel Gallagher

topic: Writing, Guitar, Useless, Writing Words