Motivational Quotes

Writing

This is the sixth book I've written, which isn't bad for a guy who's only read two.

- George Burns

Best Quotes about Writing

Writing gives you the illusion of control, and then you realize it's just an illusion, that people are going to bring their own stuff into it.

David Sedaris

The reserve of modern assertions is sometimes pushed to extremes, in which the fear of being contradicted leads the writer to strip himself of almost all sense and meaning.

Sir Winston Churchill

This is pretty much what journals are all about, at least to me. I knew as I wrote them that even though they provided an excellent place for brain (and heart, and psyche) dump, they were mainly a map of me.

Colleen Wainwright

A great writer reveals the truth even when he or she does not wish to.

Tom Bissell

Beneath the rule of men entirely great, The pen is mightier than the sword.

Edward Bulwer-Lytton

There's always something to write about. If there's not then you need to live life more aggressively.

Min Kim

The most difficult part of writing a book is not devising a plot which will captivate the reader. It's not developing characters the reader will have strong feelings for or against. It is not finding a setting which will take the reader to a place he or she as never been. It is not the research, whether in fiction or non-fiction. The most difficult task facing a writer is to find the voice in which to tell the story.

Randy Pausch

This is the sixth book I've written, which isn't bad for a guy who's only read two.

George Burns

No letter from a lover is ever more welcome, brings more joy, than a publisher's expression of interest does to a new author!

Judith Brocklehurst

10.

This is the challenge of writing. You have to be very emotionally engaged in what youÆre doing, or it comes out flat. You canÆt fake your way through this.

Real Live Preacher

11.

She was discovering once again that reading and writing were not the same-you couldn't just soak it up then squeeze it out again.

David Nicholls

12.

In comparing various authors with one another, I have discovered that some of the gravest and latest writers have transcribed, word for word, from former works, without making acknowledgment.

Pliny the Elder

13.

Please write again soon. Though my own life is filled with activity, letters encourage momentary escape into others lives and I come back to my own with greater contentment.

Elizabeth Forsythe Hailey

14.

Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man.

Sir Francis Bacon

15.

The key to non-anxious sermon-writing is that itÆs not about me. ItÆs about the congregation. I honor the fact that the listeners bring more to the sermon than I do. I remind myself of the hundreds of times someone says,'I loved how you saidà'and then tell me things that they heard that were nowhere in my text and that I never said. But they heard what they needed to hear.

Reverend Sean Parker Dennison

16.

Literature is an occupation in which you have to keep proving your talent to people who have none.

Jules Renard

17.

I never feel that I have comprehended an emotion, or fully lived even the smallest events, until I have reflected upon it in my journal; my pen is my truest confidant, holding in check the passions and disappointments that I dare not share even with my beloved.

Stephanie Barron

18.

A good many young writers make the mistake of enclosing a stamped, self-addressed envelope, big enough for the manuscript to come back in. This is too much of a temptation to the editor.

Ring Lardner

19.

I write because I'm afraid to say some things out loud.

Real Live Preacher

20.

When you write things down, they sometimes take you places you hadn't planned.

Melanie Benjamin

21.

There is only one way to defeat the enemy, and that is to write as well as one can. The best argument is an undeniably good book.

Saul Bellow

22.

I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear.

Joan Didion

23.

I don't think anyone should write their autobiography until after they're dead.

Samuel Goldwyn

24.

Thus, in a real sense, I am constantly writing autobiography, but I have to turn it into fiction in order to give it credibility.

Katherine Paterson

25.

The only thing I was fit for was to be a writer, and this notion rested solely on my suspicion that I would never be fit for real work, and that writing didn't require any.

Russell Baker

26.

It's not enough to create magic. You have to create a price for magic, too. You have to create rules.

Eric A. Burns

27.

The skill of writing is to create a context in which other people can think.

Edwin Schlossberg

28.

Words, once they are printed, have a life of their own.

Carol Burnett

29.

The man who writes about himself and his own time is the only man who writes about all people and all time.

George Bernard Shaw

30.

Vigorous writing is concise.

William Strunk Jr.

31.

Your manuscript is both good and original, but the part that is good is not original and the part that is original is not good.

Samuel Johnson

32.

At least half the mystery novels published violate the law that the solution, once revealed, must seem to be inevitable.

Raymond Chandler

33.

There are a lot of people who can't write and maybe shouldn't write.

Sarah Hepola

34.

Not every story has explosions and car chases. That's why they have nudity and espionage.

Bill Barnes and Gene Ambaum

35.

Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards.

Robert Heinlein

36.

Detail makes the difference between boring and terrific writing. ItÆs the difference between a pencil sketch and a lush oil painting. As a writer, words are your paint. Use all the colors.

Rhys Alexander

37.

You must keep sending work out; you must never let a manuscript do nothing but eat its head off in a drawer. You send that work out again and again, while you're working on another one. If you have talent, you will receive some measure of success - but only if you persist.

Isaac Asimov

38.

Don't use words too big for the subject. Don't say'infinitely'when you mean'very'; otherwise you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite.

C. S. Lewis

39.

I've always believed in writing without a collaborator, because where two people are writing the same book, each believes he gets all the worries and only half the royalties.

Agatha Christie

40.

Good writing takes more than just time; it wants your best moments and the best of you.

Real Live Preacher

41.

Maybe that's just what happens; you start out wanting to change the world through language, and end up thinking it's enough to tell a few jokes.

David Nicholls

42.

Writing is the only profession where no one considers you ridiculous if you earn no money.

Jules Renard

43.

Read over your compositions, and wherever you meet with a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.

Samuel Johnson

44.

You must not come lightly to the blank page.

Stephen King

45.

If you want to write you must have faith in yourself. Faith enough to believe that if a thing is true about you, it is likely true about many people. And if you can have faith in your integrity and your motives, then you can write about yourself without fear.

Real Live Preacher

46.

You can approach the act of writing with nervousness, excitement, hopefulness, or even despairûthe sense that you can never completely put on the page whatÆs in your mind and heart. You can come to the act with your fists clenched and your eyes narrowed, ready to kick ass and take down names. You can come to it because you want a girl to marry you or because you want to change the world. Come to it any way but lightly. Let me say it again: you must not come lightly to the blank page.

Stephen King

47.

If a writer wrote merely for his time, I would have to break my pen and throw it away.

Victor Hugo

48.

After being Turned Down by numerous Publishers, he had decided to write for Posterity.

George Ade

49.

If any man wish to write in a clear style, let him be first clear in his thoughts; and if any would write in a noble style, let him first possess a noble soul.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

50.

About the most originality that any writer can hope to achieve honestly is to steal with good judgment.

Josh Billings