Motivational Quotes

Writers and writing

I am paid by the word, so I always write the shortest words possible.

- Russell, Bertrand

Best Quotes about 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

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

Writing is conscience, scruple, and the farming of our ancestors.

Dahlberg, Edward

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

If any man wishes to write a clear style, let him first be clear in his thoughts.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

Writing is the incurable itch that possesses many.

Juvenal, (Decimus Junius Juvenalis)

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

Steinbeck, John

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

To be a good diarist, one must have a snouty, sneaky mind.

Nicolson, Harold

10.

Great writers are the saints for the godless.

Brookner, Anita

11.

In most cases a favorite writer is more with us in his book than he ever could have been in the flesh; since, being a writer, he is one who has studied and perfected this particular mode of personal incarnation, very likely to the detriment of any other. I should like as a matter of curiosity to see and hear for a moment the men whose works I admire; but I should hardly expect to find further intercourse particularly profitable.

Cooley, Charles Horton

12.

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

13.

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

Doren, Carl Van

14.

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.

15.

A book should be luminous not voluminous.

Bovee, Christian Nevell

16.

Writers are always selling somebody out.

Didion, Joan

17.

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

Lawrence, D. H.

18.

Easy writings curse is hard reading.

Sheridan, Richard Brinsley

19.

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

Steinbeck, John

20.

Writing is a craft not an art.

Zinsser, William

21.

Many writers who choose to be active in the world lose not virtue but time, and that stillness without which literature cannot be made.

Vidal, Gore

22.

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

Wilde, Oscar

23.

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.

24.

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

25.

Writing crystallizes thought and thought produces action.

Meyer, Paul J.

26.

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

27.

Let authors write for glory and reward. The truth is well paid when she is sung and heard.

Corbett, James J.

28.

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

29.

The writer is either a practicing recluse or a delinquent, guilt-ridden one; or both. Usually both.

Sontag, Susan

30.

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

Maugham, W. Somerset

31.

Any writer, I suppose, feels that the world into which he was born is nothing less than a conspiracy against the cultivation of his talent.

Baldwin, James

32.

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

33.

For your born writer, nothing is so healing as the realization that he has come upon the right word.

Bowen, Catherine Drinker

34.

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

Goodman, Ellen

35.

The writer who loses his self-doubt, who gives way as he grows old to a sudden euphoria, to prolixity, should stop writing immediately: the time has come for him to lay aside his pen.

Colette, Sidonie Gabrielle

36.

What has a writer to be bombastic about? Whatever good a man may write is the consequence of accident, luck, or surprise, and nobody is more surprised than an honest writer when he makes a good phrase or says something truthful.

Dahlberg, Edward

37.

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

Zinsser, William

38.

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

Orwell, George

39.

In a sense the world dies every time a writer dies, because, if he is any good, he has been a wet nurse to humanity during his entire existence and has held earth close around him, like the little obstetrical toad that goes about with a cluster of eggs attached to his legs.

White, Elwyn Brooks

40.

The secret of all good writing is sound judgment.

Horace

41.

If you wish to be a writer; write!

Epictetus

42.

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

43.

But this I know; the writer who possesses the creative gift owns something of which he is not always master -- something that at times strangely wills and works for itself. If the result be attractive, the World will praise you, who little deserve praise; if it be repulsive, the same World will blame you, who almost as little deserve blame.

Bronte, Charlotte

44.

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

Bennett, Arnold

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.

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

James, William

47.

The future author is one who discovers that language, the exploration and manipulation of the resources of language, will serve him in winning through to his way.

Wilder, Thornton

48.

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

49.

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

Ellman, Lucy

50.

Work on good prose has three steps: a musical stage when it is composed, an architectonic one when it is built, and a textile one when it is woven.

Benjamin, Walter