Motivational Quotes

Writing

I believe more in the scissors than I do in the pencil.

- Truman Capote

Best Quotes about Writing

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

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

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

Sarah Hepola

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

George Ade

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

I take the view, and always have, that if you cannot say what you are going to say in twenty minutes you ought to go away and write a book about it.

Lord Brabazon

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

Victor Hugo

You have to know how to accept rejection and reject acceptance.

Ray Bradbury

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

Bill Barnes and Gene Ambaum

10.

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

Benjamin Disraeli

11.

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

Sir Francis Bacon

12.

A classic is classic not because it conforms to certain structural rules, or fits certain definitions (of which its author had quite probably never heard). It is classic because of a certain eternal and irrepressible freshness.

Edith Wharton

13.

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

14.

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

15.

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

Randy Pausch

16.

If the weak hand, that has recorded this tale, has, by its scenes, beguiled the mourner of one hour of sorrow, or, by its moral, taught him to sustain it - the effort, however humble, has not been vain, nor is the writer unrewarded.

Ann Radcliffe

17.

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

Real Live Preacher

18.

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

19.

People do tell a writer things that they don't tell others. I don't know why, unless it is that having read one or two of his books they feel on peculiarly intimate terms with him; or it may be that they dramatize themselves and, seeing themselves as it were as characters in a novel, are ready to be as open with him as they imagine the characters of his invention are.

W. Somerset Maugham

20.

The cure for writer's cramp is writer's block.

Inigo DeLeon

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 have made this [letter] longer, because I have not had the time to make it shorter.

Blaise Pascal

23.

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

Leo Rosten

24.

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

Stephen King

25.

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

26.

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

Stephen King

27.

Even writers need relief from words.

Sarah Vowell

28.

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

Tom Bissell

29.

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

30.

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

Jeff Jarvis

31.

I think people want their illusions and writers are mostly illusion. When you read their words, you read a flattened, incomplete version of the writer.

Real Live Preacher

32.

We do not write because we want to; we write because we have to.

W. Somerset Maugham

33.

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

34.

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

Edwin Schlossberg

35.

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

36.

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

George Burns

37.

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

Samuel Goldwyn

38.

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

39.

Writing well mean never having to say,'I guess you had to be there.'

Jef Mallett

40.

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

41.

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

42.

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

43.

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

Jules Renard

44.

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

Fran Lebowitz

45.

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

Real Live Preacher

46.

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

Min Kim

47.

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

48.

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

49.

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

Samuel Johnson

50.

A writer is a writer not because she writes well and easily, because she has amazing talent, because everything she does is golden. In my view, a writer is a writer because even when there is no hope, even when nothing you do shows any sign of promise, you keep writing anyway.

Junot Diaz