Motivational Quotes

Writers and writing

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

- Miller, Olin

Best Quotes about Writers and writing

We do not write in order to be understood; we write in order to understand.

Lewis, Cecil Day

I was brought up in the great tradition of the late nineteenth century: that a writer never complains, never explains and never disdains.

Michener, James A.

Writers are always selling somebody out.

Didion, Joan

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

Pound, Ezra

Easy writings curse is hard reading.

Sheridan, Richard Brinsley

Writers seldom choose as friends those self-contained characters who are never in trouble, never unhappy or ill, never make mistakes, and always count their change when it is handed to them.

Bowen, Catherine Drinker

It took me fifteen years to discover I had no talent for writing, but I couldn't give it up, because by that time I was too famous.

Benchley, Robert

The cure for writers cramp is writer's block.

Leon, Inigo de

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

Rice, Anne

10.

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

11.

If you wish to be a writer; write!

Epictetus

12.

Great writers are the saints for the godless.

Brookner, Anita

13.

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

Butler, Samuel

14.

Good writing is clear thinking made visible.

Wheeler, Bill

15.

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

Vries, Peter De

16.

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

Hemingway, Ernest

17.

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

18.

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

Auden, W. H.

19.

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

Marx, Groucho

20.

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

Smith, Nancy Banks

21.

Essential characteristic of the really great novelist: a Christ-like, all-embracing compassion.

Bennett, Arnold

22.

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

Smith, Dr. Walter

23.

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

Rosten, Leo

24.

To withdraw myself from myself has ever been my sole, my entire, my sincere motive in scribbling at all.

Byron, Lord

25.

You can fire your secretary, divorce your spouse, abandon your children. But they remain your co-authors forever.

Goodman, Ellen

26.

Let's face it, writing is hell.

Styron, William

27.

No pen, no ink, no table, no room, no time, no quiet, no inclination.

Joyce, James

28.

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

29.

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

30.

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

Anderson, Margaret

31.

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

Gribbon, George

32.

Writers must fortify themselves with pride and egotism as best they can. The process is analogous to using sandbags and loose timbers to protect a house against flood. Writers are vulnerable creatures like anyone else. For what do they have in reality? Not sandbags, not timbers. Just a flimsy reputation and a name.

Aldiss, Brian

33.

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

34.

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

Steinbeck, John

35.

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

36.

The writer's language is to some degree the product of his own action; he is both the historian and the agent of his own language.

Man, Paul De

37.

Writing a novel without being asked seems a bit like having a baby when you have nowhere to live.

Ellman, Lucy

38.

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

39.

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

Sand, George

40.

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

Shaw, Irwin

41.

It's very hard to be a gentleman and a writer.

Maugham, W. Somerset

42.

The walls are the publishers of the poor.

Galeano, Eduardo

43.

After all, most writing is done away from the typewriter, away from the desk. I'd say it occurs in the quiet, silent moments, while you're walking or shaving or playing a game, or whatever, or even talking to someone you're not vitally interested in.

Miller, Henry

44.

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

45.

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

Thurber, James

46.

Writing is turning one's worst moments into money.

Donleavy, J. P.

47.

If I had more time I would write a shorter letter.

Pascal, Blaise

48.

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

49.

I'm the kind of writer that people think other people are reading.

Naipaul, V. S.

50.

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

Maugham, W. Somerset