Mobsea Logo
Home

Motivational Quotes

Writers and writing

An author ought to write for the youth of his own generation, the critics of the next, and the schoolmasters of ever afterwards.
Famous Inspirational Daily Quotes
Writers and writing Motivational Quotes



Best Quotes about Writers and writing

1.
Every writer is a narcissist. This does not mean that he is vain; it only means that he is hopelessly self-absorbed.
Rosten, Leo

2.
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

3.
A pathological business, writing, don't you think? Just look what a writer actually does: all that unnatural tense squatting and hunching, all those rituals: pathological!
Enzensberger, Hans Magnus

4.
Let your literary compositions be kept from the public eye for nine years.
Horace

5.
If I had to give young writers advice, I would say don't listen to writers talking about writing or themselves.
Hellman, Lillian

6.
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

7.
I hate the actor and audience business. An author should be in among the crowd, kicking their shins or cheering them on to some mischief or merriment.
Lawrence, D. H.

8.
To write is a humiliation.
Dahlberg, Edward

9.
Often I think writing is a sheer paring away of oneself leaving always something thinner, barer, more meager.

10.
The writer isn't made in a vacuum. Writers are witnesses. The reason we need writers is because we need witnesses to this terrifying century.
Doctorow, E. L.

11.
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

12.
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

13.
A serious writer is not to be confounded with a solemn writer. A serious writer may be a hawk or a buzzard or even a popinjay, but a solemn writer is always a bloody owl.
Hemingway, Ernest

14.
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

15.
The trade of authorship is a violent, and indestructible obsession.
Sand, George

16.
Good writers are those who keep the language efficient. That is to say, keep it accurate, keep it clear.
Pound, Ezra

17.
A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.
Woolf, Virginia

18.
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

19.
A professional writer is an amateur who didn't quit.
Bach, Richard

20.
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

21.
The process of writing has something infinite about it. Even though it is interrupted each night, it is one single notation.
Canetti, Elias

22.
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

23.
What no wife of a writer can ever understand is that a writer is working when he's staring out of the window.
Rascoe, Burton

24.
Writers like teeth are divided into incisors and grinders.
Bagehot, Walter

25.
This morning I took out a comma and this afternoon I put it back in again.
Wilde, Oscar

26.
You expect far too much of a first sentence. Think of it as analogous to a good country breakfast: what we want is something simple, but nourishing to the imagination. Hold the philosophy, hold the adjectives, just give us a plain subject and verb and perhaps a wholesome, nonfattening adverb or two.
Mcmurtry, Larry

27.
Books choose their authors; the act of creation is not entirely a rational and conscious one.
Rushdie, Salman

28.
Mr. Faulkner, of course, is interested in making your mind rather than your flesh creep.
Fadiman, Clifton

29.
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

30.
Writing is more than anything a compulsion, like some people wash their hands thirty times a day for fear of awful consequences if they do not. It pays a whole lot better than this type of compulsion, but it is no more heroic.
Burchill, Julie

31.
An author ought to write for the youth of his own generation, the critics of the next, and the schoolmasters of ever afterwards.

32.
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.

33.
The secret of all good writing is sound judgment.
Horace

34.
All good writing is swimming under water and holding your breath.

35.
If I don't write to empty my mind, I go mad. As to that regular, uninterrupted love of writing. I do not understand it. I feel it as a torture, which I must get rid of, but never as a pleasure. On the contrary, I think composition a great pain.
Byron, Lord

36.
I cringe when critics say I'm a master of the popular novel. What's an unpopular novel?
Shaw, Irwin

37.
A writer should be a joyous optimist. Anything that implies rejection of life is wrong for a writer.
Gribbon, George

38.
I write in order to attain that feeling of tension relieved and function achieved which a cow enjoys on giving milk.
Mencken, H. L.

39.
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

40.
Let authors write for glory and reward. The truth is well paid when she is sung and heard.
Corbett, James J.

41.
He who cannot limit himself will never know how to write.
Boileau, Nicholas

42.
From the point of view of literature Mr. Kipling is a genius who drops his aspirates. From the point of view of life, he is a reporter who knows vulgarity better than any one has ever known it.
Wilde, Oscar

43.
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

44.
How people treat you is their karma; how you react is yours.
Dyer, Wayne

45.
Although most of us know Vincent van Gogh in Arles and Paul Gauguin in Tahiti as if they were neighbors -- somewhat disreputable but endlessly fascinating -- none of us can name two French generals or department store owners of that period. I take enormous pride in considering myself an artist, one of the necessaries.
Michener, James A.

46.
Analogies, it is true, decide nothing, but they can make one feel more at home.
Freud, Sigmund

47.
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

48.
Habits in writing as in life are only useful if they are broken as soon as they cease to be advantageous.
Maugham, W. Somerset

49.
Mostly, we authors must repeat ourselves -- that's the truth. We have two or three great moving experiences in our lives -- experiences so great and moving that it doesn't seem at the time that anyone else has been so caught up and pounded and dazzled and astonished and beaten and broken and rescued and illuminated and rewarded and humbled in just that way ever before.

50.
We are nauseated by the sight of trivial personalities decomposing in the eternity of print.
Woolf, Virginia


Daily Inspirational Quotes on

The wisdom of the wise, and the experience of ages, may be preserved by Motivational Quotes.
Quotes on Ability
Achievement
Acting and actors
Action
Adversity
Quotes on Advertising
Advice
Age
Age and aging
Alcohol and alcoholism
Quotes on Ambition
America
Anger
Animals
Appearance
Quotes on Argument
Art
Atheism
Attitude
Beauty
Quotes on Belief
Body
Books
Books - reading
Bores and boredom
Quotes on Business
Change
Character
Charity
Children
Quotes on Choice
Christians and christianity
Churches
Civilization
Colleges and universities
Quotes on Commitment
Common sense
Communication
Communism and socialism
Competition
Quotes on Complaints and complaining
Computers
Concentration
Confidence
Conflict
Quotes on Contentment
Control
Conversation
Cooperation
Courage
Quotes on Creativity
Crime and criminals
Criticism
Culture
Death
Quotes on Education
Effort
Enemies
Enthusiasm
Equality
Quotes on Evil
Evolution
Example
Excellence
Expectation
Quotes on Experience
Facts
Failure
Faith
Fame
Quotes on Family
Fashion
Fate
Fear
Feminism
Quotes on Fiction
Focus
Food
Food and eating
Fools and foolishness
Quotes on Forgiveness
Freedom
Friends and friendship
Friendship
Genius
Quotes on Giving
Goals
God
Goodness
Gossip
Quotes on Government
Gratitude
Greatness
Grief
Growth
Quotes on Habit
Happiness
Hatred
Health
Heaven
Quotes on Heroes and heroism
History and historians
Hollywood
Home
Honesty
Quotes on Honor
Hope
Humankind
Humility
Humor
Quotes on Ideas
Ignorance
Imagination
Individuality
Integrity
Quotes on Intelligence and intellectuals
Jesus christ
Journalism and journalists
Joy
Judgment and judges
Quotes on Justice
Kindness
Knowledge
Language
Laughter
Quotes on Law and lawyers
Laziness
Leadership
Learning
Liberty
Quotes on Lies and lying
Life
Listening
Literature
Loneliness
Quotes on Losers and losing
Love
Luck
Management
Manners
Quotes on Marriage
Media
Medicine
Memory
Men
Quotes on Mind
Mistakes
Money
Morality
Mothers
Quotes on Motivation
Music
Nations
Nature
Obstacles
Quotes on Opinions
Opportunity
Optimism
Pain
Parents and parenting
Quotes on Passion
Past
Patience
Patriotism
Peace
Quotes on People
Perfection
Perseverance
Persuasion
Philosophers and philosophy
Quotes on Photography
Planning
Pleasure
Poetry and poets
Politics
Quotes on Possibilities
Potential
Poverty and the poor
Power
Praise
Quotes on Prayer
Prejudice
Present
Pride
Problems
Quotes on Procrastination
Progress
Proverbs
Purpose
Quotations
Quotes on Reality
Reason
Relationship
Religion
Reputation
Quotes on Respectability
Responsibility
Riches
Risk
Science
Quotes on Secrets
Security
Self-esteem
Service
Silence
Quotes on Simplicity
Sin
Sleep
Society
Solitude
Quotes on Speakers and speaking
Speech
Spirituality
Success
Suffering
Quotes on Talent
Taxes and taxation
Teacher
The future
Theater
Quotes on Things and little things
Thoughts and thinking
Time
Travel
Trust
Quotes on Truth
Twentieth century
Understanding
Victory
Virtue
Quotes on Vision
War
Wealth
Winners and winning
Wisdom
Quotes on Wives
Women
Words
Work
World
Quotes on Worry
Writers and writing
Writing
Youth

Test your English Language
Interior Design Ideas
Rules to play Bull Fighting
Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel
Road Safety
Benefits of Sapodilla fruits
Benefits of Radicchio
World Architecture
Daily Health Tips
Dangerous Situations And How To Escape
Rules to play High Jump
Simply Mocktails
Benefits of Dill Seeds
Most Unique Bridges In The World
The Most Stylish Men Ever
Best Fruits For Fast Weight Loss
Innovative Kitchen Tools and Gadgets
Innovative Products Ideas
Interesting Bisha Mistrys Mehndi Designs