Motivational Quotes

Writers and writing

They can't yank a novelist like they can a pitcher. A novelist has to go the full nine, even if it kills him.

- Hemingway, Ernest

Best Quotes about Writers and writing

There are two kinds of writers; the great ones who can give you truths, and the lessor ones, who can only give you themselves.

Fadiman, Clifton

Fundamentally, all writing is about the same thing; it's about dying, about the brief flicker of time we have here, and the frustration that it creates.

Richler, Mordecai

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

Borges, Jorge Luis

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

Disraeli, Benjamin

If written directions alone would suffice, libraries wouldn't need to have the rest of the universities attached.

Martin, Judith

Style may defined as the proper words in the proper places.

Swift, Jonathan

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

He is a man of thirty-five, but looks fifty. He is bald, has varicose veins and wears spectacles, or would wear them if his only pair were not chronically lost. If things are normal with him, he will be suffering from malnutrition, but if he has recently had a lucky streak, he will be suffering from a hangover. At present it is half past eleven in the morning, and according to his schedule he should have started work two hours ago; but even if he had made any serious effort to start he would have been frustrated by the almost continuous ringing of the telephone bell, the yells of the baby, the rattle of an electric drill out in the street, and the heavy boots of his creditors clumping up the stairs. The most recent interruption was the arrival of the second post, which brought him two circulars and an income tax demand printed in red. Needless to say this person is a writer.

Orwell, George

This is something that I cannot get over -- that a whole line could be written by half a man, that a work could be built on the quicksand of a character.

Kraus, Karl

10.

The secret of all good writing is sound judgment.

Horace

11.

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

Steinbeck, John

12.

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

Woolf, Virginia

13.

If you're going to write, don't pretend to write down. It's going to be the best you can do, and it's the fact that it's the best you can do that kills you.

Parker, Dorothy

14.

To write something, you have to risk making a fool of yourself.

Rice, Anne

15.

You enter a state of controlled passivity, you relax your grip and accept that even if your declared intention is to justify the ways of God to man, you might end up interesting your readers rather more in Satan.

Mcewan, Ian

16.

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

James, William

17.

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

Collins, Jackie

18.

The only way out is the way through, just as you cannot escape from death except by dying. Being unable to write, you must examine in writing this being unable, which becomes for the present -- henceforth? -- the subject to which you are condemned.

Nemerov, Howard

19.

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

Lawrence, D. H.

20.

The first essential in writing about anything is that the writer should have no experience of the matter.

Duncan, Isadora

21.

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

Fadiman, Clifton

22.

A book should be luminous not voluminous.

Bovee, Christian Nevell

23.

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

Steinbeck, John

24.

If a writer has to rob his mother, he will not hesitate; the Ode on a Grecian Urn is worth any number of old ladies.

Faulkner, William

25.

What an occupation! To sit and flay your fellow men and then offer their skins for sale and expect them to buy them.

Strindberg, J. August

26.

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

Zinsser, William

27.

I can write better than anybody who can write faster, and I can write faster than anybody who can write better.

Liebling, A. J.

28.

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

29.

Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.

Franklin, Benjamin

30.

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

31.

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

32.

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

Anderson, Margaret

33.

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

34.

If you wish to be a writer; write!

Epictetus

35.

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

36.

Writing books is the closest men ever come to childbearing.

Mailer, Norman

37.

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

Nunn, Gregory

38.

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

Wilde, Oscar

39.

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

White, Elwyn Brooks

40.

Some writers confuse authenticity, which they ought always to aim at, with originality, which they should never bother about.

Auden, W. H.

41.

To write is a humiliation.

Dahlberg, Edward

42.

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

Paz, Octavio

43.

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

Twain, Mark

44.

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

45.

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

46.

Every writer is a narcissist. This does not mean that he is vain; it only means that he is hopelessly self-absorbed.

Rosten, Leo

47.

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

Marx, Groucho

48.

The walls are the publishers of the poor.

Galeano, Eduardo

49.

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