Motivational Quotes

Writers and writing

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

Best Quotes about Writers and writing

Paper and ink are all but trash, if I cannot find the thought which the writer did think.

Smith, Dr. Walter

His style is chaos illumined by flashes of lightning. As a writer he has mastered everything except language.

Wilde, Oscar

They're fancy talkers about themselves, writers. If I had to give young writers advice, I would say don't listen to writers talking about writing or themselves.

Hellman, Lillian

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

I think of an author as somebody who goes into the marketplace and puts down his rug and says, I will tell you a story, and then he passes the hat.

Davies, Robertson

Books choose their authors; the act of creation is not entirely a rational and conscious one.

Rushdie, Salman

Good writing is clear thinking made visible.

Wheeler, Bill

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.

Whores and writers, Mahound. We are the people you can't forgive.

Rushdie, Salman

10.

Yes, it's hard to write, but it's harder not to.

Doren, Carl Van

11.

I think it's bad to talk about one's present work, for it spoils something at the root of the creative act. It discharges the tension.

Mailer, Norman

12.

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

Thurber, James

13.

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.

14.

I would love to spend all my time writing to you; I'd love to share with you all that goes through my mind, all that weighs on my heart, all that gives air to my soul; phantoms of art, dreams that would be so beautiful if they could come true.

Pirandello, Luigi

15.

Writing is the incurable itch that possesses many.

Juvenal, (Decimus Junius Juvenalis)

16.

The characteristic of Chaucer is intensity: of Spencer, remoteness: of Milton elevation and of Shakespeare everything.

Hazlitt, William

17.

My own experience has been that the tools I need for my trade are paper, tobacco, food, and a little whisky.

Faulkner, William

18.

The writer is more concerned to know than to judge.

Maugham, W. Somerset

19.

He is outside of everything, and alien everywhere. He is an aesthetic solitary. His beautiful, light imagination is the wing that on the autumn evening just brushes the dusky window.

James, Henry

20.

Habits in writing as in life are only useful if they are broken as soon as they cease to be advantageous.

Maugham, W. Somerset

21.

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

Twain, Mark

22.

The only living works are those which have drained much of the author's own life into them.

Butler, Samuel

23.

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

Pascal, Blaise

24.

The creations of a great writer are little more than the moods and passions of his own heart, given surnames and Christian names, and sent to walk the earth.

Yeats, William Butler

25.

All writers are vain, selfish and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives lies a mystery. Writing a book is a long, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.

Orwell, George

26.

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

Hemingway, Ernest

27.

Good authors, too, who once knew better words now only use four-letter words writing prose... anything goes.

Porter, Cole

28.

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

29.

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

Dennis, Patrick

30.

Writing is the continuation of politics by other means.

Sollers, Philippe

31.

Really, in the end, the only thing that can make you a writer is the person that you are, the intensity of your feeling, the honesty of your vision, the unsentimental acknowledgment of the endless interest of the life around and within you. Virtually nobody can help you deliberately-many people will help you unintentionally.

Rau, Santha Rama

32.

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

Shaw, Irwin

33.

Analogies, it is true, decide nothing, but they can make one feel more at home.

Freud, Sigmund

34.

Great writers are the saints for the godless.

Brookner, Anita

35.

A good writer is basically a story teller, not a scholar or a redeemer of mankind.

Singer, Isaac Bashevis

36.

I love being a writer, what I can't stand is the paperwork.

Vries, Peter De

37.

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

38.

I never think when I write. Nobody can do two things at the same time and do them well.

Marquis, Don

39.

Writing is turning one's worst moments into money.

Donleavy, J. P.

40.

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

41.

You must often make erasures if you mean to write what is worthy of being read a second time; and don't labor for the admiration of the crowd, but be content with a few choice readers.

Horace

42.

Often I think writing is a sheer paring away of oneself leaving always something thinner, barer, more meager.

43.

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

44.

To write is a humiliation.

Dahlberg, Edward

45.

No doubt I shall go on writing, stumbling across tundras of unmeaning, planting words like bloody flags in my wake. Loose ends, things unrelated, shifts, nightmare journeys, cities arrived at and left, meetings, desertions, betrayals, all manner of unions, adulteries, triumphs, defeats... these are the facts.

Trocchi, Alexander

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.

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

Zinsser, William

48.

There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.

Hemingway, Ernest

49.

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

Pound, Ezra

50.

Writing is a craft not an art.