Motivational Quotes

Writers and writing

I don't regard Brecht as a man of iron-gray purpose and intellect, I think he is a theatrical whore of the first quality.

- Hall, Sir Peter

Best Quotes about Writers and writing

What I like in a good author isn't what he says, but what he whispers.

Smith, Logan Pearsall

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

Zinsser, William

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

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

Marquis, Don

The best emotions to write out of are anger and fear or dread. The least energizing emotion to write out of is admiration. It is very difficult to write out of because the basic feeling that goes with admiration is a passive contemplative mood.

Sontag, Susan

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

I never know what I think about something until I read what I've written on it.

Faulkner, William

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

Faulkner, William

Writing is thinking on paper.

Zinsser, William

10.

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

11.

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

Porter, Cole

12.

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

13.

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

14.

It is excellent discipline for an author to feel that he must say all that he has to say in the fewest possible words, or his readers is sure to skip them.

Ruskin, John

15.

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

Twain, Mark

16.

For a creative writer possession of the truth is less important than emotional sincerity.

Orwell, George

17.

The trade of authorship is a violent, and indestructible obsession.

Sand, George

18.

The free-lance writer is a man who is paid per piece or per word or perhaps.

Benchley, Robert

19.

Easy writings curse is hard reading.

Sheridan, Richard Brinsley

20.

This morning I took out a comma and this afternoon I put it back in again.

Wilde, Oscar

21.

The trouble began with Forster. After him it was considered ungentlemanly to write more than five or six novels.

Burgess, Anthony

22.

Practically everybody in New York has half a mind to write a book, and does.

Marx, Groucho

23.

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

Pound, Ezra

24.

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

Butler, Samuel

25.

Writing is an act of faith, not a trick of grammar.

White, Elwyn Brooks

26.

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

Steinbeck, John

27.

Every writer hopes or boldly assumes that his life is in some sense exemplary, that the particular will turn out to be universal.

Amis, Martin

28.

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

Doren, Carl Van

29.

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

Smith, Nancy Banks

30.

The writer probably knows what he meant when he wrote a book, but he should immediately forget what he meant when he's written it.

Golding, William

31.

Writers like teeth are divided into incisors and grinders.

Bagehot, Walter

32.

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

33.

The writer is more concerned to know than to judge.

Maugham, W. Somerset

34.

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

Pascal, Blaise

35.

A writer should be a joyous optimist. Anything that implies rejection of life is wrong for a writer.

Gribbon, George

36.

I was in a queer mood, thinking myself very old: but now I am a woman again -- as I always am when I write.

Woolf, Virginia

37.

A man writes to throw off the poison which he has accumulated because of his false way of life. He is trying to recapture his innocence, yet all he succeeds in doing (by writing) is to inoculate the world with a virus of his disillusionment. No man would set a word down on paper if he had the courage to live out what he believed in.

Miller, Henry

38.

A writer never reads his work. For him, it is the unreadable, a secret, and he cannot remain face to face with it. A secret, because he is separated from it.

Blanchot, Maurice

39.

Most bad books get that way because their authors are engaged in trying to justify themselves. If a vain author is an alcoholic, then the most sympathetically portrayed character in his book will be an alcoholic. This sort of thing is very boring for outsiders.

Vizinczey, Stephen

40.

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

Freud, Sigmund

41.

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

Nunn, Gregory

42.

Writing ought either to be the manufacture of stories for which there is a market demand -- a business as safe and commendable as making soap or breakfast foods -- or it should be an art, which is always a search for something for which there is no market demand, something new and untried, where the values are intrinsic and have nothing to do with standardized values.

Cather, Willa

43.

I don't regard Brecht as a man of iron-gray purpose and intellect, I think he is a theatrical whore of the first quality.

Hall, Sir Peter

44.

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

45.

The best way to become a successful writer is to read good writing, remember it, and then forget where you remember it from.

Fowler, Gene

46.

Writers are a little below the clowns and a little above the trained seals.

Steinbeck, John

47.

Great writers are the saints for the godless.

Brookner, Anita

48.

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

49.

To write is a humiliation.

Dahlberg, Edward

50.

Writing is the continuation of politics by other means.

Sollers, Philippe