Motivational Quotes

Writing

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

- Tom Bissell

Best Quotes about Writing

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

Samuel Goldwyn

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

Melanie Benjamin

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

Robert Benchley

Any word you have to hunt for in a thesaurus is the wrong word. There are no exceptions to this rule.

Stephen King

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

Jules Renard

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

I have never thought of writing as hard work, but I have worked hard to find a voice.

Randy Pausch

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

Carol Burnett

Advice to writers: Sometimes you just have to stop writing. Even before you begin.

Stanislaw J. Lec

10.

Why do writers write? Because it isn't there.

Thomas Berger

11.

Be generous, be delicate, and always pursue the prize.

Henry James

12.

You must not come lightly to the blank page.

Stephen King

13.

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

Bill Barnes and Gene Ambaum

14.

The first step in blogging is not writing them but reading them.

Jeff Jarvis

15.

Typos are very important to all written form. It gives the reader something to look for so they aren't distracted by the total lack of content in your writing.

Randy K. Milholland

16.

If writers stopped writing about what happened to them, then there would be a lot of empty pages.

Elaine Liner

17.

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

18.

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

19.

No passion in the world is equal to the passion to alter someone else's draft.

H. G. Wells

20.

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

21.

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

22.

Write something to suit yourself and many people will like it; write something to suit everybody and scarcely anyone will care for it.

Jesse Stuart

23.

If you don't have the time to read, you don't have the time or the tools to write.

Stephen King

24.

The only reason for being a professional writer is that you can't help it.

Leo Rosten

25.

All of us learn to write in the second grade. Most of us go on to greater things.

Bobby Knight

26.

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

27.

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

Peter De Vries

28.

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

29.

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

30.

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

31.

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

32.

I'm all in favor of keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of fools. Let's start with typewriters.

Solomon Short

33.

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

Edwin Schlossberg

34.

You ask me why I do not write something....I think one's feelings waste themselves in words, they ought all to be distilled into actions and into actions which bring results.

Florence Nightingale

35.

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

Sarah Hepola

36.

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

37.

In certain kinds of writing, particularly in art criticism and literary criticism, it is normal to come across long passages which are almost completely lacking in meaning.

George Orwell

38.

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

Robert Heinlein

39.

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

Victor Hugo

40.

An author is a fool who, not content with boring those he lives with, insists on boring future generations.

Charles de Montesquieu

41.

Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it.

C. S. Lewis

42.

The best way to become acquainted with a subject is to write a book about it.

Benjamin Disraeli

43.

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

George Burns

44.

A writer is a person for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.

Thomas Mann

45.

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

46.

Sometimes, when it's going badly, she wonders if what she believes to be a love of the written word is really just a fetish for stationary. The true writer, the born writer, will scribble words on scraps of litter, the back of a bus ticket, on the wall of a cell.

David Nicholls

47.

Journalism is just a gun. It's only got one bullet in it, but if you aim right, that's all you need. Aim it right and you can blow a kneecap off the world.

Warren Ellis

48.

First you're an unknown, then you write one book and you move up to obscurity.

Martin Myers

49.

Your life story would not make a good book. Don't even try.

Fran Lebowitz

50.

Inspiration is wonderful when it happens, but the writer must develop an approach for the rest of the time... The wait is simply too long.

Leonard Bernstein