best quotations about
Writing |
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Quotations
 | If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn't brood. I'd type a little faster. — Isaac Asimov, 1920-1992, American Sci-Fi writer (in a TV show; he claimed later that he had actually said “6 months”) 11 likes |
 | Write drunk, edit sober. — Ernest Hemingway, 1899-1961, American writer, Nobel 1954 10 likes |
 | Optimists do not write well. — Paul Valery, 1871-1945, French poet 8 likes |
| Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers. — Isaac Asimov, 1920-1992, American Sci-Fi writer 8 likes |
| I write for the same reason I breathe - because if I didn't, I would die. — Isaac Asimov, 1920-1992, American Sci-Fi writer 7 likes |
 | An author in his book must be like God in the universe, present everywhere and visible nowhere. — Gustave Flaubert, 1821-1880, French writer 6 likes |
 | Unprovided with original learning, unformed in the habits of thinking, unskilled in the arts of composition, I resolved to write a book. — Edward Gibbon, 1737-1794, English historian 6 likes |
 | Writing is my vacation from living. — Eugene O’Neill, 1888-1953, American playwright, Nobel 1936 5 likes |
 | Medicine is my lawful wife, and literature is my mistress. When I get fed up with one, I spend the night with the other. — Anton Chekhov, 1860-1904, Russian writer 5 likes |
 | Writing is a way of talking without being interrupted. — Jules Renard, 1864-1910, French writer 5 likes |
 | A story should have a beginning, a middle and an end, but not necessarily in that order. — Jean-Luc Godard, 1930-2022, French film director 5 likes |
| Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass. — Anton Chekhov, 1860-1904, Russian writer (writing tip) 5 likes |
 | To write what is worth publishing, to find honest people to publish it, and get sensible people to read it, are the three great difficulties in being an author. — Charles Caleb Colton, 1780-1832, English cleric & writer 4 likes |
 | It is not sufficient to combine Well-chosen words in a well-ordered line. 4 likes |
 | I’m the Ernest Hemingway of 140 characters. — Donald Trump, 1946-, President of the USA 4 likes |
 | I do not know what I think until I write it. — George Bernard Shaw, 1856-1950, Irish writer, Nobel 1925 4 likes |
 | You have to write for yourself, that's how you can get to others. — Eugene Ionesco, 1912-1994, French-Romanian playwright 4 likes |
| It's harder to write in the third person but the advantage is you move around better. — Ernest Hemingway, 1899-1961, American writer, Nobel 1954 4 likes |
 | The writer is the engineer of the human soul. — Joseph Stalin, 1879-1953, Soviet leader 4 likes |
 | It is by the audacity of their grammatical mistakes that we recognize the great writers. — Henry de Montherlant, 1895-1972, French writer 4 likes |
 | A writer's ambition should be to trade a hundred contemporary readers for ten readers in ten years' time and for one reader in a hundred years' time. — Arthur Koestler, 1905-1983, Hungarian-British writer 4 likes |
 | When I hear a critic speaking of an author’s sincerity, I know that either the critic or the author is a fool. — Vladimir Nabokov, 1899-1977, Russian-American writer 4 likes |
 | The purpose of a writer is to keep civilization from destroying itself. — Albert Camus, 1913-1960, French writer, Nobel 1957 4 likes |
 | A writer is a world trapped in a person. — Victor Hugo, 1802-1885, French writer 3 likes |
 | The two most engaging powers of an author are to make new things familiar and familiar things new. — Samuel Johnson, 1709-1784, English writer 3 likes |
 | Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart. — William Wordsworth, 1770-1850, English poet 3 likes |
 | The free-lance writer is one who is paid per piece or per word or perhaps. — Robert Benchley, 1889-1945, American columnist 3 likes |
 | Writing is easy. All you have to do is cross out the wrong words. — Mark Twain, 1835-1910, American writer 3 likes |
 | The best way to become acquainted with a subject is to write about it. — Benjamin Disraeli, 1804-1881, British Prime Minister 3 likes |
 | To hold a pen is to be at war. — Voltaire, 1694-1778, French philosopher & writer 3 likes |
| Writing is the only profession where no one considers you ridiculous if you earn no money. — Jules Renard, 1864-1910, French writer 3 likes |
 | Some editors are failed writers, but so are most writers. — T. S. Eliot, 1888-1965, British poet, Nobel 1948 3 likes |
| If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired. Otherwise don't put it there. — Anton Chekhov, 1860-1904, Russian writer 3 likes |
| My own experience is that once a story has been written, one has to cross out the beginning and the end. It is there that we authors do most of our lying. — Anton Chekhov, 1860-1904, Russian writer 3 likes |
| In displaying the psychology of your characters, minute particulars are essential. God save us from vague generalizations! — Anton Chekhov, 1860-1904, Russian writer 3 likes |
 | To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme. — Herman Melville, 1819-1891, American writer 3 likes |
 | Any writer who knows what he's doing isn't doing very much. — Nelson Algren, 1909-1981, American writer 3 likes |
| The writer must wade into life as into the sea, but only up to the navel. — Gustave Flaubert, 1821-1880, French writer 3 likes |
 | Do not write merely to be understood. Write so you cannot possibly be misunderstood. — Robert Louis Stevenson, 1850-1894, Scottish writer 3 likes |
 | That is the dream of all novelists: that one of their characters will become “somebody”. — José Saramago, 1922-2010, Portuguese writer [Nobel 1998] 3 likes |
 | Description begins in the writer’s imagination, but should finish in the reader’s. — Stephen King, 1947-, American author of horror & fantasy fiction 3 likes |
| What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure. — Samuel Johnson, 1709-1784, English writer 3 likes |
 | Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self. — Cyril Connolly, 1903-1974, British writer 3 likes |
| A story should entertain the writer, too. — Stephen King, 1947-, American author of horror & fantasy fiction 3 likes |
| The writer’s job is to get the main character up a tree, and then once they are up there, throw rocks at them. — Vladimir Nabokov, 1899-1977, Russian-American writer 2 likes |
| Play! Invent the world! Invent reality! — Vladimir Nabokov, 1899-1977, Russian-American writer 2 likes |
 | Writing a book is an adventure. To begin with it is a toy then an amusement. Then it becomes a mistress, and then it becomes a master, and then it becomes a tyrant. — Winston Churchill, 1874-1965, British Prime Minister, Nobel 1953 2 likes |
 | The obscurity of a writer is generally in proportion to his incapacity. — Quintilian, 35-96 AD, Roman rhetorician 2 likes |
 | I hate writing, I love having written. — Dorothy Parker, 1893-1967, American writer, poet, satirist, critic 2 likes |
| Writing is the art of applying the ass to the seat. — Dorothy Parker, 1893-1967, American writer, poet, satirist, critic 2 likes |
| My method is to take the utmost trouble to find the right thing to say, and then to say it with the utmost levity. — George Bernard Shaw, 1856-1950, Irish writer, Nobel 1925 2 likes |
 | Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing. — Benjamin Franklin, 1706-1790, American politician & writer 2 likes |
 | A popular author is one who writes what the people think. Genius invites them to think something else. — Ambrose Bierce, 1842–1914, American writer 2 likes |
 | Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print. Never use a long word where a short one will do. — George Orwell, 1903-1950, British writer 2 likes |
| A writer never has a vacation. For a writer, life consists of either writing or thinking about writing. — Eugene Ionesco, 1912-1994, French-Romanian playwright 2 likes |
 | If you can tell stories, create characters, devise incidents, and have sincerity and passion, it doesn't matter a damn how you write. — Somerset Maugham, 1874-1965, British writer 2 likes |
| I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read. — Samuel Johnson, 1709-1784, English writer 2 likes |
 | Works of imagination should be written in very plain language; the more purely imaginative they are the more necessary it is to be plain. — Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1772-1834, English poet & philosopher 2 likes |
 | Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man. — Francis Bacon, 1561-1626, English philosopher 2 likes |
| We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master. — Ernest Hemingway, 1899-1961, American writer, Nobel 1954 2 likes |
| There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed. — Ernest Hemingway, 1899-1961, American writer, Nobel 1954 2 likes |
| What one wrote playfully, another reads with tension and passion; what one wrote with tension and passion, another reads playfully. — Paul Valery, 1871-1945, French poet 2 likes |
 | How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live. — Henry David Thoreau, 1817-1862, American writer 2 likes |
 | Writing is like paying myself a formal visit — Fernando Pessoa, 1888-1935, Portuguese poet & writer 2 likes |
 | A journalist is stimulated by a deadline. He writes worse when he has time. — Karl Kraus, 1874-1936, Austrian writer 2 likes |
| It’s easier to write about Socrates than about a young woman or a cook. — Anton Chekhov, 1860-1904, Russian writer 2 likes |
 | How many authors are there among writers? Author means originator. — Friedrich von Schlegel, 1772-1829, German writer 2 likes |
| The adverb is not your friend. — Stephen King, 1947-, American author of horror & fantasy fiction 2 likes |
| That author, however, who has thought more than he has read, read more than he has written, and written more than he published, if he does not command success, has at least deserved it. — Charles Caleb Colton, 1780-1832, English cleric & writer 2 likes |
| Thinking of Poe, thinking of Mark Twain and Vachel Lindsay, thinking of Jack London and Tom Wolfe, one begins to feel there is almost no way of becoming a creative writer in America without being a loser. — Nelson Algren, 1909-1981, American writer 2 likes |
 | The writer's function is to prevent myths turning into allegories. — Michel Tournier, 1924-2016, French writer 2 likes |
| I don't recommend being a bachelor, but it helps if you want to write. — Nelson Algren, 1909-1981, American writer 2 likes |
| All bad writers are in love with the epic. — Ernest Hemingway, 1899-1961, American writer, Nobel 1954 2 likes |
 | Writing does not cause misery. It is born of misery. — Michel de Montaigne, 1533-1592, French thinker 2 likes |
 | It takes a lot of energy and a lot of neurosis to write a novel. If you were really sensible, you'd do something else. — Lawrence Durrell, 1912-1990, British writer 2 likes |
 | Translation is the art of failure. — Umberto Eco, 1932-2016, Italian writer 2 likes |
| Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand. — George Orwell, 1903-1950, British writer 2 likes |
 | Of all those arts in which the wise excel, the greatest gift is to write well. — André Breton, 1896-1966, French writer, founder of Surrealism 1 likes |
 | The best time for planning a book is while you're doing the dishes. — Agatha Christie, 1890-1976, British writer 1 likes |
 | You don't write because you want to say something, you write because you have something to say. — Francis Scott Fitzgerald, 1896-1940, American writer 1 likes |
| Show me a hero, and I'll write you a tragedy. — Francis Scott Fitzgerald, 1896-1940, American writer 1 likes |
 | Put your feet up when you think; remove them when writing. |
 | It is not the voice that commands the story. It is the ear. |
 | Writing is a fine thing, because it combines the two pleasures of talking to yourself and talking to a crowd. |
 | Writing and reading is to me synonymous with existing. |
| A writer should write with his eyes and a painter paint with his ears. |
| I write for myself and strangers. The strangers, dear Readers, are an afterthought. |
| I have always noticed that in portraits of really great writers the mouth is always firmly closed. |
 | Writing is utter solitude, the descent into the cold abyss of oneself. |
 | A day in which I don't write leaves a taste of ashes. |
 | Before you use a nice word, make room for it. |
 | The writer must believe that what he is doing is the most important thing in the world. And he must hold to this illusion even when he knows it is not true. |
| In utter loneliness a writer tries to explain the inexplicable. |
| Writers are a little below clowns and a little above trained seals. |
| The weak places in a book need to be better written than the others. |
| The difficult thing in literature is knowing what not to say. |
| Writing is a dog’s life, but the only one worth living. |
| The art of writing is the art of discovering what you believe. |
 | I am not deep, but I am very wide. |
 | The only excuse a man has for writing is that he express himself, that he reveal to others the kind of world reflected in the mirror of his soul; his only excuse is that he be original. |
| We write as we feel, as we think, with our entire body. |
 | No one can advise or help you — no one. There is only one thing you should do. Go into yourself. Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depths of your heart. |
 | Making a book is a craft, like making a clock; it needs more than native wit to be an author. |
 | The moment comes when a character does or says something you hadn't thought about. At that moment he's alive and you leave it to him. |
 | Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose or paint can manage to escape the madness, the melancholia, the panic fear which is inherent in the human condition. |
| My two fingers on a typewriter have never connected with my brain. My hand on a pen does. A fountain pen, of course. Ball-point pens are only good for filling out forms on a plane. |
| The economy of a novelist is a little like that of a careful housewife who is unwilling to throw away anything that might perhaps serve its turn. Perhaps the comparison is closer to the Chinese cook who leaves hardly any part of a duck unserved. |
 | That’s what I try to do –write sentences that won’t be like sand castles. |
| A writer is a reader who is moved to emulation. |
| My younger daughter told me recently that when she was a child she thought the typewriter was a toy that I went into my room and closed the door and played with. |
 | All the good writers of confessions, from Augustine onwards, are men who are still a little in love with their sins. |
| You become a good writer just as you become a good joiner: by planing down your sentences. |
 | What I adore is supreme professionalism. I’m bored by writers who can write only when it’s raining. |
 | Writing is the most fun you can have by yourself. |
| You have to have really wide reading habits and pay attention to the news and just everything that's going on in the world: you need to. If you get this right, then the writing is a piece of cake. |
| This book had two authors, and they were both the same person. |
 | It begins with a character, usually, and once he stands up on his feet and begins to move, all I can do is trot along behind him with a paper and pencil trying to keep up long enough to put down what he says and does. |
| I never know what I think about something until I read what I’ve written on it. |
| The difficulty of literature is not to write, but to write what you mean; not to affect your reader, but to affect him precisely as you wish. |
| It takes hard writing to make easy reading. |
| Publishing a book is talking at the table in front of the servants. |
 | One writes not by will but by surrender. |
| In a certain sense, you do write to seduce the world, but when it happens, you begin to feel like a whore. The disparity between your life and your work turns out to be as great as ever. And the people seduced by your work are usually seduced by all the wrong reasons. |
| You are always naked when you start writing; you are always as if you had never written anything before; you are always a beginner. Shakespeare wrote without knowing he would become Shakespeare. |
| I discovered the secret of writing: live in the present moment. Do not fantasize about possible response because you cannot know the future. |
 | I like to write when I feel spiteful. It is like having a good sneeze. |
 | The original is unfaithful to the translation. |
| A writer – and, I believe, generally all persons – must think that whatever happens to him or her is a resource. |
| I never reread what I've written. I'm far too afraid to feel ashamed of what I've done. |
| Reality is not always probable, or likely. But if you're writing a story, you have to make it as plausible as you can, because if not, the reader's imagination will reject it. |
| Writing is nothing more than a guided dream. |
 | Forget the books you want to write. Think only of the book you are writing. |
| Keep your exclamation points under control! |
| The best technique is none at all. |
| You have to write a million words before you find your voice as a writer. |
| The truly great writer does not want to write. He wants the world to be a place in which he can live the life of the imagination. |
 | I really like that the heart dictates, that the imagination writes and that the mind corrects. — Maurice Chapelan, 1906-1992, French author of maxims & journalist |
 | Literature takes a habit of mind that has disappeared. It requires silence, some form of isolation, and sustained concentration in the presence of an enigmatic thing. |
| The novelist’s obsession, moment by moment, is with language: finding the right next word. |
| Novel-writing is, for the novelist, a game of let’s pretend. |
| Writing is frustration – it’s daily frustration, not to mention humiliation. It’s just like baseball: you fail two-thirds of the time. |
| Nothing bad can happen to a writer. Everything is material. |
| I turn sentences around. That’s my life. I write a sentence and then I turn it around. Then I look at it and turn it around again… |
 | If you're going to be a writer you have to be one of the great ones... After all, there are better ways to starve to death. |
| Sometimes I say that writing a novel is the same as constructing a chair: a person must be able to sit in it, to be balanced on it. If I can produce a great chair, even better. But above all I have to make sure that it has four stable feet. |
| Any word you have to hunt for in a thesaurus is the wrong word. There are no exceptions to this rule. — Stephen King, 1947-, American author of horror & fantasy fiction |
| If you don't have time to read, you don't have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that. — Stephen King, 1947-, American author of horror & fantasy fiction |
 | Writing is talking to yourself-with the hope of being overheard. — Marty Rubin, 1930-1994, Canadian gay activist, author & journalist |
 | A writer is a reader moved to emulation. — Saul Bellow, 1914-2005, Canadian-American writer, Nobel 1976 |
| All a writer has to do to get a woman is to say he's a writer. It's an aphrodisiac. — Saul Bellow, 1914-2005, Canadian-American writer, Nobel 1976 |
 | It is not the stories that matter, but the tone in which they are told. |
| You should never do literature, you have to write and it's not the same. |
 | To be a writer is not to preach a truth, it is to discover a truth. |
| Find the key emotion; this may be all you need know to find your short story. |
| Cut out all these exclamation points. An exclamation point is like laughing at your own joke. |
 | My idea of a writer: someone interested in everything. — Susan Sontag, 1933-2004, American writer, critic, activist |
| Reading usually precedes writing. And the impulse to write is almost always fired by reading. Reading, the love of reading, is what makes you dream of becoming a writer. — Susan Sontag, 1933-2004, American writer, critic, activist |
 | My task, which I am trying to achieve is, by the power of the written word, to make you hear, to make you feel – it is, before all, to make you see. |
 | A writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people. |
 | Six Characters in Search of an Author. |
 | Clarity of text is the only clear sign of the maturity of an idea. |
| Never write anything that does not give you great pleasure. Emotion is easily transferred from the writer to the reader. |
 | Writers are desperate people and when they stop being desperate they stop being writers. |
| Your first book already defines you, while you are really far from being defined. And this definition is something you may then carry with you for the rest of your life, trying to confirm it or extend or correct or deny it; but you can never eliminate it. |
| He asked, “What makes a man a writer?” “Well,” I said, “it's simple. You either get it down on paper, or jump off a bridge.” |
Personal Stories
| When I want to read a novel, I write one. — Benjamin Disraeli, 1804-1881, British Prime Minister 2 likes |
Latin Quotes
 | Who writes, reads twice. Qui scribit, bis legit. 22 likes |
Quotes in Verse
 | “Fool,” said my muse to me. “Look in thy heart and write.” — Philip Sidney, 1554-1586, English poet & courtier 4 likes |
 | I write only because There is a voice within me That will not be still. — Sylvia Plath, 1932-1963, American poet & writer 3 likes |
Funny Quotes
 | I'm writing an unauthorized autobiography — Steven Wright, 1955-, American comedian 4 likes |
 | To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research. — Wilson Mizner, 1876-1913, American playwright 3 likes |
| There are three rules for writing the novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are. — Somerset Maugham, 1874-1965, British writer 2 likes |
 | If I had nine of my fingers missing I wouldn’t type any slower. — Mitch Hedberg, 1968-2005, American comedian 2 likes |
| The profession of book-writing makes horse-racing seem like a solid, stable business. |
Ancient Greek
 | [I don’t write because] I cannot write as I want and I wouldn’t write as I can. Ως μεν βούλομαι ου δύναμαι, ως δε δύναμαι ου βούλομαι. — Theocritus, 3rd cent. BC, Ancient Greek poet 3 likes |
Movie Quotes
 | A man writes because he is tormented, because he doubts. He needs to constantly prove to himself and the others that he's worth something. And if I know for sure that I'm a genius? Why write then? What the hell for? — from the film Stalker (1979) 5 likes |
 | -How do you write women so well? - I think of a man, and I take away reason and accountability. — from the film As Good As it Gets (1997) 4 likes |
