Quotes About Writing
Over the past year, including Twitter, Facebook, and this Blog, I have posted more than 1,000 quotes. Many of these are about love and life, and others are about writing and publishing.
Below are some of the quotes about writing that I've recently posted on my Facebook page. (HERE)
Posts about Writers and Writing (9/29-11/15):
“Finishing a book is just like you took a child out in the back yard and shot it.” Truman Capote
“The unread story is not a story; it is little black marks on wood pulp. The reader, reading it, makes it live: a live thing, a story.” Ursula K. Le Guin
“In general…there’s no point in writing hopeless novels. We all know we’re going to die; what’s important is the kind of men and women we are in the face of this.” Anne Lamott
“People on the outside think there’s something magical about writing, that you go up in the attic at midnight and cast the bones and come down in the morning with a story, but it isn’t like that. You sit in back of the typewriter and you work, and that’s all there is to it.” Harlan Ellison
“I am irritated by my own writing. I am like a violinist whose ear is true, but whose fingers refuse to reproduce precisely the sound he hears within.” Gustave Flaubert
“First, find out what your hero wants, then just follow him!” Ray Bradbury
“To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme.” Herman Melville
“Most writers regard the truth as their most valuable possession, and therefore are most economical in its use.” Mark Twain
“No one can write decently who is distrustful of the reader’s intelligence or whose attitude is patronizing.” E. B. White
“People do not deserve to have good writing, they are so pleased with bad.” Ralph Waldo Emerson
“A poet can survive everything but a misprint.” Oscar Wilde
“It is the writer who might catch the imagination of young people, and plant a seed that will flower and come to fruition.” Isaac Asimov
“Writing is its own reward.” Henry Miller
“The work never matches the dream of perfection the artist has to start with.” William Faulkner
“Begin with an individual, and before you know it you have created a type; begin with a type, and you find you have created – nothing.” F. Scott Fitzgerald
“Exercise the writing muscle every day, even if it is only a letter, notes, a title list, a character sketch, a journal entry. Writers are like dancers, like athletes. Without that exercise, the muscles seize up.” Jane
“Get it down. Take chances. It may be bad, but it’s the only way you can do anything really good.” William Faulkner
“I can’t write five words but that I change seven.” Dorothy Parker
“Prose is architecture, not interior decoration.” Ernest Hemingway
“Everybody walks past a thousand story ideas every day. The good writers are the ones who see five or six of them. Most people don’t see any.” Orson Scott Card
“Everybody walks past a thousand story ideas every day. The good writers are the ones who see five or six of them. Most people don’t see any.” Orson Scott Card
“All the information you need can be given in dialogue.” Elmore Leonard
“Anecdotes don’t make good stories. Generally I dig down underneath them so far that the story that
“If you have other things in your life—family, friends, good productive day work—these can interact with your writing and the sum will be all the richer.” David Brin
"Why should I paint dead fish, onions, and beer glasses? Girls are so much prettier." Marie Laurencin
“The writer is a mysterious figure, wandering lonely as a cloud, fired by inspiration, or perhaps a cocktail or two.” Sara Sheridan
“What one writer can make in the solitude of one room is something no power can easily destroy.” Salman Rushdie
“A writer should have this little voice inside of you saying, tell me the truth. Reveal a few secrets here.” Quentin Tarantino
“The waste basket is the writer’s best friend.” Isaac Bashevis Singer
“Half my life is an act of revision.” John Irving
"Men's memoirs are about answers; women's memoirs are about questions. Most male authors want to look good in their memoirs and have a place in posterity, while most women know that posterity is what happens when you no longer care. Women want to connect with others here and now; they couldn't care less about legacy!" Isabel Allende
"I like reading history, and actually most authors enjoy the research part because it is, after all, easier than writing." Ken Follett
"I read and walked for miles at night along the beach, writing bad blank verse and searching endlessly for someone wonderful who would step out of the darkness and change my life. It never crossed my mind that that person could be me." Anna Quindlen
“A few minutes ago every tree was excited, bowing to the roaring storm, waving, swirling, tossing their branches in glorious enthusiasm like worship. But thought to the outer ear these trees are now silent, their songs never cease.” John Muir
"If you want to get rich from writing, write the sort of thing that's read by persons who move their lips when they're reading to themselves." Don Marquis
"Writing is like walking in a deserted street. Out of the dust in the street you make a mud pie."
John le Carre
"Writing is like prostitution. First you do it for love, and then for a few close friends, and then for money." Moliere
"The good writing of any age has always been the product of someone's neurosis." William Styron
"The profession of book writing makes horse racing seem like a solid, stable business." John Steinbeck
"I write lustily and humorously. It isn't calculated; it's the way I think. I've invented a writing style that expresses who I am." Erica Jong
"There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written." Oscar Wilde
"The lust and attraction are often a given in a romance novel - I want to dig into the elements of true friendship that form a foundation for a solid, gonna-last-forever romantic relationship." Suzanne Brockmann
"I'm writing a book. I've got the page numbers done." Steven Wright
"Writing is truly a creative art - putting word to a blank piece of paper and ending up with a full-fledged story rife with character and plot." William Shatner
"The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say." Anais Nin
"Writing a novel that crosses genres is a risk, but one well worth taking." Chet Williamson
"I think as women we've always been very used to growing up reading and identifying with male protagonists, especially in fantasy. There's a saying in publishing that girls will read about boys, but boys will only read about boys, and it's important to give women strong heroines." Cassandra Clare
"To read a book, to think it over, and to write out notes is a useful exercise; a book which will not repay some hard thought is not worth publishing." Maria Mitchell
