Motivational Quotes

Writers and writing

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

Best Quotes about Writers and writing

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

Steinbeck, John

Only amateurs say that they write for their own amusement. Writing is not an amusing occupation. It is a combination of ditch-digging, mountain-climbing, treadmill and childbirth. Writing may be interesting, absorbing, exhilarating, racking, relieving. But amusing? Never!

Ferber, Edna

An author who speaks about his own books is almost as bad as a mother who talks about her own children.

Disraeli, Benjamin

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

Four basic premises of writing: clarity, brevity, simplicity, and humanity.

Zinsser, William

Writing saved me from the sin and inconvenience of violence.

Walker, Alice

The shelf life of the modern hardback writer is somewhere between the milk and the yogurt.

Mortimer, John

Writing is the hardest way of earning a living, with the possible exception of wrestling alligators.

Miller, Olin

The writer must write what he has to say, not speak it.

Hemingway, Ernest

10.

Life cannot defeat a writer who is in love with writing; for life itself is a writer's love until death.

Ferber, Edna

11.

Writing is the only thing that, when I do it, I don't feel I should be doing something else.

Steinem, Gloria

12.

From the point of view of literature Mr. Kipling is a genius who drops his aspirates. From the point of view of life, he is a reporter who knows vulgarity better than any one has ever known it.

Wilde, Oscar

13.

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

Steinbeck, John

14.

The hard necessity of bringing the judge on the bench down into the dock has been the peculiar responsibility of the writer in all ages of man.

Algren, Nelson

15.

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

Twain, Mark

16.

The last thing we decide in writing a book is what to put first.

Pascal, Blaise

17.

I like to write when I feel spiteful. It is like having a good sneeze.

Lawrence, D. H.

18.

Some American writers who have known each other for years have never met in the daytime or when both were sober.

Thurber, James

19.

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

Collins, Jackie

20.

The cure for writers cramp is writer's block.

Leon, Inigo de

21.

Employ your time in improving yourself by other men's writings so that you shall come easily by what others have labored hard for.

Socrates

22.

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

Woolf, Virginia

23.

Good novels are not written by orthodoxy-sniffers, nor by people who are conscience-stricken about their own orthodoxy. Good novels are written by people who are not frightened.

Orwell, George

24.

There are hardly half a dozen writers in England today who have not sold out to the enemy. Even when their good work has been a success, Mammon grips them and whispers: More money for more work.

Crowley, Aleister

25.

The ambivalence of writing is such that it can be considered both an act and an interpretive process that follows after an act with which it cannot coincide. As such, it both affirms and denies its own nature.

Man, Paul De

26.

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

Paz, Octavio

27.

Writing is to descend like a miner to the depths of the mine with a lamp on your forehead, a light whose dubious brightness falsifies everything, whose wick is in permanent danger of explosion, whose blinking illumination in the coal dust exhausts and corrodes your eyes.

Sauser, Blaise Cendrars

28.

Hard writing makes easy reading. Easy writing makes hard reading.

Zinsser, William

29.

Writers are always selling somebody out.

Didion, Joan

30.

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

James, William

31.

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

32.

A word is a bud attempting to become a twig. How can one not dream while writing? It is the pen which dreams. The blank page gives the right to dream.

Bachelard, Gaston

33.

Who often, but without success, have prayed for apt Alliteration's artful aid.

Churchill, Charles

34.

When writers meet they are truculent, indifferent, or over-polite. Then comes the inevitable moment. A shows B that he has read something of B s. Will B show A? If not, then A hates B, if yes, then all is well. The only other way for writers to meet is to share a quick pee over a common lamp-post.

Connolly, Cyril

35.

An author ought to write for the youth of his own generation, the critics of the next, and the schoolmasters of ever afterwards.

36.

The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shock-proof, shit detector. This is the writer's radar and all great writers have had it.

Hemingway, Ernest

37.

The writer is more concerned to know than to judge.

Maugham, W. Somerset

38.

Whiskey has killed more men than bullets, but most men would rather be full of whiskey than bullets. What I like in a good author is not what he says, but what he whispers.

Smith, Logan Pearsall

39.

Let's face it, writing is hell.

Styron, William

40.

Great writers are the saints for the godless.

Brookner, Anita

41.

The trouble with young writers is that they are all in their sixties.

Maugham, W. Somerset

42.

Every writing career starts as a personal quest for sainthood, for self-betterment. Sooner or later, and as a rule quite soon, a man discovers that his pen accomplishes a lot more than his soul.

Brodsky, Joseph

43.

Writing is thinking on paper.

Zinsser, William

44.

My idea is always to reach my generation. The wise writer writes for the youth of his own generation, the critics of the next, and the schoolmasters of ever afterward.

45.

No poet or novelist wishes he were the only one who ever lived, but most of them wish they were the only one alive, and quite a number fondly believe their wish has been granted.

Auden, W. H.

46.

To note an artist's limitations is but to define his talent. A reporter can write equally well about everything that is presented to his view, but a creative writer can do his best only with what lies within the range and character of his deepest sympathies.

Cather, Willa

47.

It requires more than mere genius to be an author.

La Bruyere, Jean De

48.

Who wants to become a writer? And why? Because it's the answer to everything. To Why am I here? To uselessness. It's the streaming reason for living. To note, to pin down, to build up, to create, to be astonished at nothing, to cherish the oddities, to let nothing go down the drain, to make something, to make a great flower out of life, even if it's a cactus.

Bagnold, Enid

49.

Writing is the incurable itch that possesses many.

Juvenal, (Decimus Junius Juvenalis)

50.

For a country to have a great writer is like having another government. That's why no r?gime has ever loved great writers, only minor ones.

Solzhenitsyn, Alexander