Motivational Quotes

Writers and writing

It is rarely that you see an American writer who is not hopelessly sane.

- Anderson, Margaret

Best Quotes about Writers and writing

Writing is a craft not an art.

Zinsser, William

The first thing an unpublished author should remember is that no one asked him to write in the first place. With this firmly in mind, he has no right to become discouraged just because other people are being published.

Farrar, John

The discipline of the written word punishes both stupidity and dishonesty.

Steinbeck, John

Writing isn't hard. It isn't any harder than ditch-digging.

Dennis, Patrick

The writer is more concerned to know than to judge.

Maugham, W. Somerset

We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master.

Hemingway, Ernest

Good writers are those who keep the language efficient. That is to say, keep it accurate, keep it clear.

Pound, Ezra

Like all writers, he measured the achievements of others by what they had accomplished, asking of them that they measure him by what he envisaged or planned.

Borges, Jorge Luis

All good writing is swimming under water and holding your breath.

10.

I am paid by the word, so I always write the shortest words possible.

Russell, Bertrand

11.

The more books we read, the clearer it becomes that the true function of a writer is to produce a masterpiece and that no other task is of any consequence.

Connolly, Cyril

12.

The role of the writer is not simply to arrange Being according to his own lights; he must also serve as a medium to Being and remain open to its often unfathomable dictates. This is the only way the work can transcend its creator and radiate its meaning further than the author himself can see or perceive.

Havel, Vaclav

13.

I cringe when critics say I'm a master of the popular novel. What's an unpopular novel?

Shaw, Irwin

14.

But this I know; the writer who possesses the creative gift owns something of which he is not always master -- something that at times strangely wills and works for itself. If the result be attractive, the World will praise you, who little deserve praise; if it be repulsive, the same World will blame you, who almost as little deserve blame.

Bronte, Charlotte

15.

Writers and politicians are natural rivals. Both groups try to make the world in their own images; they fight for the same territory.

Rushdie, Salman

16.

True ease in writing comes from art, not chance, as those move easiest who have learned to dance. 'Tis not enough no harshness gives offence. The sound must seem an echo to the sense.

Pope, Alexander

17.

Let authors write for glory and reward. The truth is well paid when she is sung and heard.

Corbett, James J.

18.

Although most of us know Vincent van Gogh in Arles and Paul Gauguin in Tahiti as if they were neighbors -- somewhat disreputable but endlessly fascinating -- none of us can name two French generals or department store owners of that period. I take enormous pride in considering myself an artist, one of the necessaries.

Michener, James A.

19.

The profession of book writing makes horse racing seem like a solid, stable business.

Steinbeck, John

20.

Every writer creates his own precursors. His work modifies our conception of the past, as it will modify the future.

Borges, Jorge Luis

21.

I have tried simply to write the best I can. Sometimes I have good luck and write better than I can.

Hemingway, Ernest

22.

If you wish to be a writer; write!

Epictetus

23.

A pathological business, writing, don't you think? Just look what a writer actually does: all that unnatural tense squatting and hunching, all those rituals: pathological!

Enzensberger, Hans Magnus

24.

Writing is the continuation of politics by other means.

Sollers, Philippe

25.

The man who writes about himself and his own time is the only man who writes about all people and about all time.

Shaw, George Bernard

26.

Writing is a question of finding a certain rhythm. I compare it to the rhythms of jazz. Much of the time life is a sort of rhythmic progression of three characters. If one tells oneself that life is like that, one feels it less arbitrary.

Sagan, Francoise

27.

A writer is someone who can make a riddle out of an answer.

Kraus, Karl

28.

There is no luck in literary reputation. They who make up the final verdict upon every book are not the partial and noisy readers of the hour when it appears; but a court as of angels, a public not to be bribed, not to be entreated, and not to be overawed, decides upon every man's title to fame.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

29.

If a nation loses its storytellers, it loses its childhood.

Handke, Peter

30.

He who cannot limit himself will never know how to write.

Boileau, Nicholas

31.

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

Bach, Richard

32.

If I had not existed, someone else would have written me, Hemingway, Dostoevski, all of us.

Faulkner, William

33.

Any man who can write a page of living prose adds something to our life, and the man who can, as I can, is surely the last to resent someone who can do it even better. An artist cannot deny art, nor would he want to. A lover cannot deny love.

Chandler, Raymond

34.

A great writer creates a world of his own and his readers are proud to live in it. A lesser writer may entice them in for a moment, but soon he will watch them filing out.

Connolly, Cyril

35.

Agatha Christie has given more pleasure in bed than any other woman.

Smith, Nancy Banks

36.

Mostly, we authors must repeat ourselves -- that's the truth. We have two or three great moving experiences in our lives -- experiences so great and moving that it doesn't seem at the time that anyone else has been so caught up and pounded and dazzled and astonished and beaten and broken and rescued and illuminated and rewarded and humbled in just that way ever before.

37.

Mr. Faulkner, of course, is interested in making your mind rather than your flesh creep.

Fadiman, Clifton

38.

People want to know why I do this, why I write such gross stuff. I like to tell them that I have the heart of a small boy -- and I keep it in a jar on my desk.

King, Stephen

39.

A writer is a person who has solutions for which there are no riddles.

Nunn, Gregory

40.

Footnotes -- little dogs yapping at the heels of the text

James, William

41.

A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.

Woolf, Virginia

42.

The cure for writers cramp is writer's block.

Leon, Inigo de

43.

Every human being has hundreds of separate people living under his skin. The talent of a writer is his ability to give them their separate names, identities, personalities and have them relate to other characters living with him.

Brooks, Mel

44.

To write is to make oneself the echo of what cannot cease speaking -- and since it cannot, in order to become its echo I have, in a way, to silence it. I bring to this incessant speech the decisiveness, the authority of my own silence.

Blanchot, Maurice

45.

You expect far too much of a first sentence. Think of it as analogous to a good country breakfast: what we want is something simple, but nourishing to the imagination. Hold the philosophy, hold the adjectives, just give us a plain subject and verb and perhaps a wholesome, nonfattening adverb or two.

Mcmurtry, Larry

46.

Writing is like getting married. One should never commit oneself until one is amazed at one's luck.

Murdoch, Iris

47.

A writer writes not because he is educated but because he is driven by the need to communicate. Behind the need to communicate is the need to share. Behind the need to share is the need to be understood. The writer wants to be understood much more than he wants to be respected or praised or even loved. And that perhaps, is what makes him different from others.

Rosten, Leo

48.

I hate the actor and audience business. An author should be in among the crowd, kicking their shins or cheering them on to some mischief or merriment.

Lawrence, D. H.

49.

Writers, you know, are the beggars of Western society.

Paz, Octavio

50.

If you want to be a writer-stop talking about it and sit down and write!

Collins, Jackie