My Favorite Writing Quotes
At the moment of commitment, the universe conspires to assist you. GOETHE
Writing is the only thing that, when I do it, I don't feel I should be doing something else. GLORIA STEINEM
Write about it by day, and dream about it by night. E.B. WHITE
I get up every morning determined to both change the world and have one hell of a good time. Sometimes this makes planning my day difficult. E. B. WHITE
I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have. THOMAS EDISON
In fiction, veracity is nice...but believability is all that you're really required to provide and all that your audience has a right to expect. ROBERT MASELLO - Robert's Rules of Writing
Whew.
Anybody who shifts gears when he writes for children is likely to wind up stripping his gears. E.B. WHITE
Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on. LOUIS L'AMOUR
I’m like a big old hen. I can’t cluck too long about the egg I’ve just laid because I’ve got five more inside me pushing to get out. LOUIS L'AMOUR
Don’t get it right, just get it written. JAMES THURBER
I have so little control over the act of writing that it's all I can do to remain conscious. DAVID RAKOFF
No one ever said it would be easy. ANNIE DILLARD
I believe more in the scissors than I do in the pencil. TRUMAN CAPOTE
When you have a great and difficult task, something perhaps almost impossible, if you only work a little at a time, every day a little, suddenly the work will finish itself. ISAK DINESEN
Writing is when we make the words. Editing is when we make the words not shitty. CHUCK WENDIG
How much a character cares about his/her goals is in direct proportion to how much the reader will care. LAURA DEVRIES
Inspiration usually comes during work, rather than before it. MADELEINE L’ENGLE
You need a certain amount of nerve to be a writer, an almost physical nerve, the kind you need to walk a log across a river. MARGARET ATWOOD
As for discipline—it's important, but sort of overrated. The more important virtue for a writer, I believe, is self-forgiveness. Because your writing will always disappoint you. Your laziness will always disappoint you. ELIZABETH GILBERT
Nulla dies sine linea. Let that be their motto. And let their work be to them as is his common work to the common labourer. No gigantic efforts will then be necessary. He need tie no wet towels round his brow, nor sit for thirty hours at his desk without moving,—as men have sat, or said that they have sat. More than nine-tenths of my literary work has been done in the last twenty years, and during twelve of those years I followed another profession. I have never been a slave to this work, giving due time, if not more than due time, to the amusements I have loved. But I have been constant,—and constancy in labour will conquer all difficulties. Gutta cavat lapidem non vi, sed saepe cadendo. - Trollope
Someday, the first line of this will be a tattoo.
If I waited until I felt like writing, I'd never write at all. ANNE TYLER
Talent is cheap. What matters is discipline. ANDRÉ DUBUS
I write pieces and move them around. The fun of it is watching the truthful parts slide together. What is false won't fit. ELIZABETH STROUT
Never be ashamed of your subject, and of your passion for your subject. JOYCE CAROL OATES
The tradition I was born into was essentially nomadic, a herdsmen tradition, following animals across the earth. The bookshops are a form of ranching; instead of herding cattle, I herd books. Writing is a form of herding, too; I herd words into little paragraphlike clusters. LARRY McMURTRY
Easy reading is damned hard writing. NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
Writing is driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make whole trip that way. E.L. DOCTOROW
Writing makes no noise, except groans, and it can be done everywhere, and it is done alone. URSULA K. LEGUIN
Every time I hear writers talk about “the muse,” I just want to bitch-slap them. It’s a job. Do your job. NORA ROBERTS
"Sister Mary Responsibility kicks the Muse's ass every single day." Nora Roberts, great video HERE.
All good writing is swimming under water and holding your breath. F. SCOTT FITZGERALD
Don't be nervous. Work calmly, joyously, recklessly on whatever is in hand. HENRY MILLER
I love being a writer. What I can’t stand is the paperwork. PETER DE VRIES
How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives… ANNIE DILLARD
Humor is what happens when we're told the truth quicker and more directly than we're used to.ANN PATCHETT
Getting the first draft finished is like pushing a peanut with your nose across a very dirty floor.JOYCE CAROL OATES
The first 8 drafts are terrible. MALCOLM GLADWELL
Word.
Perfection is like chasing the horizon. Keep moving. NEIL GAIMAN
Take the time to write. You can do your life's work in half an hour a day. ROBERT HASS
You run it through your mind until your tuning fork is still. MARTIN AMIS
If you’re going to tell people the truth, be funny or they’ll kill you. BILLY WILDER
An overflow of creative urges is the reward for indulging in the new. JULIA CAMERON
I think the hardest part about writing is writing. NORA EPHRON
All I hope to say in books, all that I ever hope to say, is that I love the world. E. B. WHITE
Be obscure clearly. E.B. WHITE
Scenery is fine, but human nature is finer. JOHN KEATS
A word after a word after a word is power. MARGARET ATWOOD
The only way to become a better writer is to become a better person. BRENDA UELAND
The writer must wade into life as into the sea, but only up to the navel. GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
There are techniques and skills to be learned for writing as in any profession or trade. All the stories fall into certain patterns of behavior that we call plots. Plots are nothing but a constantly recurring human situation, patterns of behavior. It’s my belief that 90% of all fiction is based on just 12 to 18 plots, and you can find them in any metropolitan newspaper in any given week. The same plots used by the ancient Greek dramatists were also used by Chaucer, Shakespeare and Dickens. Nobody “invents” a plot. LOUIS L’AMOUR
Writing is the hardest work in the world not involving heavy lifting. PETE HAMILL
Nobody is making you do this: you chose it, so don’t whine. MARGARET ATWOOD
I don’t grasp it very readily at all, the “it” being whatever I’m trying to do. ALICE MUNRO
If I’m going slow I’m in trouble. It means I’m pushing the words instead of being pulled by them.RAYMOND CHANDLER
We have to accept ourselves in order to write. Now none of us does that fully: few of us do it even halfway. Don’t wait for one hundred percent acceptance of yourself before you write, or even eight percent acceptance. Just write. The process of writing is an activity that teaches us about acceptance. NATALIE GOLDBERG
Writing is the only thing that, when I do it, I don't feel I should be doing something else. GLORIA STEINEM
Write about it by day, and dream about it by night. E.B. WHITE
I get up every morning determined to both change the world and have one hell of a good time. Sometimes this makes planning my day difficult. E. B. WHITE
I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have. THOMAS EDISON
In fiction, veracity is nice...but believability is all that you're really required to provide and all that your audience has a right to expect. ROBERT MASELLO - Robert's Rules of Writing
Whew.
Anybody who shifts gears when he writes for children is likely to wind up stripping his gears. E.B. WHITE
Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on. LOUIS L'AMOUR
I’m like a big old hen. I can’t cluck too long about the egg I’ve just laid because I’ve got five more inside me pushing to get out. LOUIS L'AMOUR
Don’t get it right, just get it written. JAMES THURBER
I have so little control over the act of writing that it's all I can do to remain conscious. DAVID RAKOFF
No one ever said it would be easy. ANNIE DILLARD
I believe more in the scissors than I do in the pencil. TRUMAN CAPOTE
When you have a great and difficult task, something perhaps almost impossible, if you only work a little at a time, every day a little, suddenly the work will finish itself. ISAK DINESEN
Writing is when we make the words. Editing is when we make the words not shitty. CHUCK WENDIG
How much a character cares about his/her goals is in direct proportion to how much the reader will care. LAURA DEVRIES
Inspiration usually comes during work, rather than before it. MADELEINE L’ENGLE
You need a certain amount of nerve to be a writer, an almost physical nerve, the kind you need to walk a log across a river. MARGARET ATWOOD
As for discipline—it's important, but sort of overrated. The more important virtue for a writer, I believe, is self-forgiveness. Because your writing will always disappoint you. Your laziness will always disappoint you. ELIZABETH GILBERT
Nulla dies sine linea. Let that be their motto. And let their work be to them as is his common work to the common labourer. No gigantic efforts will then be necessary. He need tie no wet towels round his brow, nor sit for thirty hours at his desk without moving,—as men have sat, or said that they have sat. More than nine-tenths of my literary work has been done in the last twenty years, and during twelve of those years I followed another profession. I have never been a slave to this work, giving due time, if not more than due time, to the amusements I have loved. But I have been constant,—and constancy in labour will conquer all difficulties. Gutta cavat lapidem non vi, sed saepe cadendo. - Trollope
Someday, the first line of this will be a tattoo.
If I waited until I felt like writing, I'd never write at all. ANNE TYLER
Talent is cheap. What matters is discipline. ANDRÉ DUBUS
I write pieces and move them around. The fun of it is watching the truthful parts slide together. What is false won't fit. ELIZABETH STROUT
Never be ashamed of your subject, and of your passion for your subject. JOYCE CAROL OATES
The tradition I was born into was essentially nomadic, a herdsmen tradition, following animals across the earth. The bookshops are a form of ranching; instead of herding cattle, I herd books. Writing is a form of herding, too; I herd words into little paragraphlike clusters. LARRY McMURTRY
Easy reading is damned hard writing. NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
Writing is driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make whole trip that way. E.L. DOCTOROW
Writing makes no noise, except groans, and it can be done everywhere, and it is done alone. URSULA K. LEGUIN
Every time I hear writers talk about “the muse,” I just want to bitch-slap them. It’s a job. Do your job. NORA ROBERTS
"Sister Mary Responsibility kicks the Muse's ass every single day." Nora Roberts, great video HERE.
All good writing is swimming under water and holding your breath. F. SCOTT FITZGERALD
Don't be nervous. Work calmly, joyously, recklessly on whatever is in hand. HENRY MILLER
I love being a writer. What I can’t stand is the paperwork. PETER DE VRIES
How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives… ANNIE DILLARD
Humor is what happens when we're told the truth quicker and more directly than we're used to.ANN PATCHETT
Getting the first draft finished is like pushing a peanut with your nose across a very dirty floor.JOYCE CAROL OATES
The first 8 drafts are terrible. MALCOLM GLADWELL
Word.
Perfection is like chasing the horizon. Keep moving. NEIL GAIMAN
Take the time to write. You can do your life's work in half an hour a day. ROBERT HASS
You run it through your mind until your tuning fork is still. MARTIN AMIS
If you’re going to tell people the truth, be funny or they’ll kill you. BILLY WILDER
An overflow of creative urges is the reward for indulging in the new. JULIA CAMERON
I think the hardest part about writing is writing. NORA EPHRON
All I hope to say in books, all that I ever hope to say, is that I love the world. E. B. WHITE
Be obscure clearly. E.B. WHITE
Scenery is fine, but human nature is finer. JOHN KEATS
A word after a word after a word is power. MARGARET ATWOOD
The only way to become a better writer is to become a better person. BRENDA UELAND
The writer must wade into life as into the sea, but only up to the navel. GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
There are techniques and skills to be learned for writing as in any profession or trade. All the stories fall into certain patterns of behavior that we call plots. Plots are nothing but a constantly recurring human situation, patterns of behavior. It’s my belief that 90% of all fiction is based on just 12 to 18 plots, and you can find them in any metropolitan newspaper in any given week. The same plots used by the ancient Greek dramatists were also used by Chaucer, Shakespeare and Dickens. Nobody “invents” a plot. LOUIS L’AMOUR
Writing is the hardest work in the world not involving heavy lifting. PETE HAMILL
Nobody is making you do this: you chose it, so don’t whine. MARGARET ATWOOD
I don’t grasp it very readily at all, the “it” being whatever I’m trying to do. ALICE MUNRO
If I’m going slow I’m in trouble. It means I’m pushing the words instead of being pulled by them.RAYMOND CHANDLER
We have to accept ourselves in order to write. Now none of us does that fully: few of us do it even halfway. Don’t wait for one hundred percent acceptance of yourself before you write, or even eight percent acceptance. Just write. The process of writing is an activity that teaches us about acceptance. NATALIE GOLDBERG
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