quotes about writing an essay

50 Inspiring Quotes About Writing From the World’s Greatest Authors

Writing can be hard, but it doesn’t have to be lonely. Learn from the masters of the craft.

BY GLENN LEIBOWITZ , CONTRIBUTOR, INC.COM   @ GLENNLEIBOWITZ

It’s never been a better time to be a writer  –or aspire to become one.

Platforms like LinkedIn , Medium, and WordPress have placed millions of dollars of technology, and the power that once only belonged to major publishing and media firms, into the hands of millions of writers  – entirely for free.

But technology can take a writer only so far. Writing is an art and a craft that needs to be developed through deliberate practice and study over a long period of time. Fortunately, some of the world’s greatest writers, the ones who mastered the craft and whose names have been passed down to us through time, gifted us not only with their stories. Many of them took time between the creation of their novels and short stories and poems to codify their writing philosophies, their writing strategies, and their writing habits.

Some of these authors recorded their thoughts on writing in books, some as essays, and some as letters to their friends, lovers, and editors.

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If you’re ever in need of inspiration or just want a few quick tips to help keep your words flowing onto the screen, just dip into the wisdom of these great authors. Here are 50 nuggets of writing wisdom from some of the greatest authors of all time:

“You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children.” –Madeleine L’Engle

“If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.” –Stephen King

“We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect.” –Anaïs Nin

“Substitute ‘damn’ every time you’re inclined to write ‘very’; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.” –Mark Twain

“If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” –Toni Morrison

“One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple.” –Jack Kerouac, T he Dharma Bums

“Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.” –Benjamin Franklin

“You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write.” –Saul Bellow

“No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader.” –Robert Frost

“Read, read, read. Read everything – trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You’ll absorb it. Then write. If it’s good, you’ll find out. If it’s not, throw it out of the window.” –William Faulkner

“You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.” –Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing

“Words can be like X-rays if you use them properly – they’ll go through anything. You read and you’re pierced.” –Aldous Huxley, Brave New World

“How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.” –Henry David Thoreau

“I can shake off everything as I write; my sorrows disappear, my courage is reborn.” –Anne Frank

“A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.” –Thomas Mann, Essays of Three Decades

“Let me live, love, and say it well in good sentences.” –Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

“Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you’ve been to college.” –Kurt Vonnegut Jr., A Man Without a Country

“Don’t bend; don’t water it down; don’t try to make it logical; don’t edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly.” –Franz Kafka

“I kept always two books in my pocket, one to read, one to write in.” –Robert Louis Stevenson

“You can make anything by writing.” –C.S. Lewis

“A word after a word after a word is power.” –Margaret Atwood

“Tears are words that need to be written.” –Paulo Coelho

“You should write because you love the shape of stories and sentences and the creation of different words on a page. Writing comes from reading, and reading is the finest teacher of how to write.” –Annie Proulx

“Writing is like sex. First you do it for love, then you do it for your friends, and then you do it for money.” –Virginia Woolf

“To survive, you must tell stories.” –Umberto Eco, The Island of the Day Before

“Always be a poet, even in prose.” –Charles Baudelaire

“If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn’t brood. I’d type a little faster.” –Isaac Asimov

“The purpose of a writer is to keep civilization from destroying itself.” –Albert Camus

“I write to discover what I know.” –Flannery O’Connor

“Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.” — John Steinbeck

“A book is made from a tree. It is an assemblage of flat, flexible parts (still called ‘leaves’) imprinted with dark pigmented squiggles. One glance at it and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, the author is speaking, clearly and silently, inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people, citizens of distant epochs, who never knew one another. Books break the shackles of time–proof that humans can work magic.” — Carl Sagan

“Words do not express thoughts very well. They always become a little different immediately after they are expressed, a little distorted, a little foolish.” — Hermann Hesse

“Writing books is the closest men ever come to childbearing.” — Norman Mailer

“Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depth of your heart; confess to yourself you would have to die if you were forbidden to write.” — Rainer Maria Rilke

“As a writer, you should not judge, you should understand.” — Ernest Hemingway

“A good writer possesses not only his own spirit but also the spirit of his friends.” — Friedrich Nietzsche

“The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.” –Thomas Jefferson

“If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it. Or, if proper usage gets in the way, it may have to go. I can’t allow what we learned in English composition to disrupt the sound and rhythm of the narrative.”  –  Elmore Leonard

“Writers live twice.”  –  Natalie Goldberg

“To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme.” — Herman Melville

“Words are a lens to focus one’s mind.” — Ayn Rand

“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

“Writing is its own reward.” — Henry Miller

“A blank piece of paper is God’s way of telling us how hard it is to be God.” — Sidney Sheldon

“I went for years not finishing anything. Because, of course, when you finish something you can be judged.” — Erica Jong

“I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.” — Douglas Adams

“Half my life is an act of revision.” — John Irving

“Get it down. Take chances. It may be bad, but it’s the only way you can do anything really good.” — William Faulkner

“Almost anyone can be an author; the business is to collect money and fame from this state of being.” — A. A. Milne

“When you make music or write or create, it’s really your job to have mind-blowing, irresponsible, condomless sex with whatever idea it is you’re writing about at the time.” –Lady Gaga

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65 Motivational Writing Quotes to Ignite Your Creative Spark

| Candace Osmond

Candace Osmond

Candace Osmond studied Advanced Writing & Editing Essentials at MHC. She’s been an International and USA TODAY Bestselling Author for over a decade. And she’s worked as an Editor for several mid-sized publications. Candace has a keen eye for content editing and a high degree of expertise in Fiction.

Quotes about writing have always been powerful tools to inspire and motivate writers, helping us work through the ups and downs of our creative journeys.

We’ve pooled together an amazing list of famous quotes about writing, penned by some of the greatest authors and thinkers, to give you some guidance, insight, and maybe even a gentle nudge to keep going when the going gets tough. We’ve all been there, and sometimes, a relatable quote can help put things back into perspective.

In this article, I’ll roll out a curated collection of inspirational quotes about writing, which I’ve also categorized by themes like motivation, challenges, process, and craft. Ready to be inspired and get that kick in the britches to keep writing?

Then read on and let these motivational writing quotes ignite that spark!

What Are the Best Motivational Quotes for Writers?

The best motivational quotes for writers are the ones that resonate deeply within us. The words offer comfort, encouragement, or a fresh perspective on the carnival ride that is the writing journey. These are some of my favorite quotes from famous authors, screenwriters, poets, and even unexpected sources.

So, whether you’re losing a battle with writer’s block or looking for a fresh burst of creativity to kickstart a new freelance writing project, these quotes are here to remind you that every writer faces challenges—and every writer has the power to overcome them.

Inspirational Quotes on Writing: Motivation

Motivation is the fuel that keeps the writing engine running, and sometimes, all we need is a few powerful words to jumpstart our creativity.

These inspirational quotes about writing are perfect for pulling out during those moments when you feel absolutely stuck or just in need of a boost. They remind us that writing is a chaotic process that demands perseverance, courage, and maybe even a little bit of faith.

So, soak up these words from literary greats like Terry Pratchett, Jodi Picoult, and Ernest Hemingway, and remember the importance of telling your story.

“The first draft is just you telling yourself the story.” – Terry Pratchett

“Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on.” – Louis L’Amour

“You can always edit a bad page. You can’t edit a blank page.” – Jodi Picoult

“You fail only if you stop writing.” – Ray Bradbury

“If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” – Toni Morrison

“Write hard and clear about what hurts.” – Ernest Hemingway

“A word after a word after a word is power.” – Margaret Atwood

“I can shake off everything as I write; my sorrows disappear, my courage is reborn.” – Anne Frank

“Writing is its own reward.” – Henry Miller

“Write what you know. That should leave you with a lot of free time.” – Howard Nemerov

“To survive, you must tell stories.” – Umberto Eco

“We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect.” – Anaïs Nin

“If a story is in you, it has to come out.” – William Faulkner

“The secret of it all is to write… without waiting for a fit time or place.” – Walt Whitman

“Write a page a day. Only 300 words. And in a year, you have written a book.” – Stephen King

“To write well, express yourself like the common people, but think like a wise man.” – Aristotle

“Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader—not the fact that it is raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.” – E.L. Doctorow

Inspirational Quotes on Writing: Challenges

Writing isn’t always easy; in fact, it’s almost never easy, otherwise, everyone would do it. Writing sometimes feels like an uphill battle with no end in sight. But facing challenges head-on is all part of the writing journey, whether you want to admit it or not.

This next list of writing quotes brings together ideas that speak to the struggles every writer faces—from self-doubt to writer’s block and the fear of putting your thoughts on paper for an essay . These famous quotes about writing acknowledge the difficulties of the craft, offering both empathy and encouragement.

“The scariest moment is always just before you start.” – Stephen King

“Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere.” – Anne Lamott

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” – Maya Angelou

“Every writer I know has trouble writing.” – Joseph Heller

“Write what disturbs you, what you fear, what you have not been willing to speak about. Be willing to be split open.” – Natalie Goldberg

“You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write.” – Saul Bellow

“Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia.” – E.L. Doctorow

“We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master.” – Ernest Hemingway

“Writing is the art of disappointment.” – Dan Abnett

“The road to hell is paved with works-in-progress.” – Philip Roth

“The pages are still blank, but there is a miraculous feeling of the words being there, written in invisible ink and clamoring to become visible.” – Vladimir Nabokov

“Writing is easy. All you have to do is cross out the wrong words.” – Mark Twain

“Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards.” – Robert A. Heinlein

“First, find out what your hero wants, then just follow him.” – Ray Bradbury

“The best time for planning a book is while you’re doing the dishes.” – Agatha Christie

Inspirational Quotes on Writing: Process

The writing process is different for every single writer. Some are pantsers, and others are deep plotters. I’ve even met some who are a mix of both. Regardless of where you fall on the spectrum, you’ll relate to this next list of motivational writing quotes.

It gets into the nuts and bolts of writing—the habits, the routines, the rituals that help writers put words on the page. These quotes emphasize the importance of persistence, imagination, and the willingness to embrace the messiness of the ever-personal creative process.

“The greatest part of a writer’s time is spent in reading in order to write; a man will turn over half a library to make one book.” – Samuel Johnson

“The role of a writer is not to say what we can all say, but what we are unable to say.” – Anaïs Nin

“You don’t write because you want to say something, you write because you have something to say.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald

“A professional writer is an amateur who didn’t quit.” – Richard Bach

“Description begins in the writer’s imagination, but should finish in the reader’s.” – Stephen King

“A good writer possesses not only his own spirit but also the spirit of his friends.” – Friedrich Nietzsche

“Write drunk, edit sober.” – Ernest Hemingway

“The best stories are the ones that make you feel something.” – Neil Gaiman

“The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.” – Mark Twain

“Write without pay until somebody offers to pay.” – Mark Twain

“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” – Ernest Hemingway

“To me, the greatest pleasure of writing is not what it’s about, but the inner music that words make.” – Truman Capote

“Writing is thinking on paper.” – William Zinsser

“A book is simply the container of an idea—like a bottle; what is inside the book is what matters.” – Angela Carter

“Imagination is like a muscle. I found out that the more I wrote, the bigger it got.” – Philip José Farmer

“The task of a writer is not to solve the problem but to state the problem correctly.” – Anton Chekhov

“The purpose of a writer is to keep civilization from destroying itself.” – Albert Camus

“The writer must write what he has to say, not speak it.” – Ernest Hemingway

“The true alchemists do not change lead into gold; they change the world into words.” – William H. Gass

“The writer is an explorer. Every step is an advance into a new land.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Inspirational Quotes on Writing: Craft

Writing is an art form. There’s no doubt about it. And mastering your craft means dedication, practice, and a deep understanding of language and storytelling. Next up, we’ve gathered quotes that focus on the finer points of writing—the style, the technique, the unique voice every writer strives to develop.

I hope they encourage you to experiment, to play with language, and to express yourself fully and authentically. From the poetic wisdom of Anton Chekhov to the sharp insights of E.L. Doctorow, these quotes will inspire you to hone your craft and find your unique style.

“Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.” – Anton Chekhov

“The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.” – Thomas Jefferson

“There is no real ending. It’s just the place where you stop the story.” – Frank Herbert

“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life or better to endure it.” – Samuel Johnson

“Writers live twice.” – Natalie Goldberg

“Let the world burn through you. Throw the prism light, white hot, on paper.” – Ray Bradbury

“A blank piece of paper is God’s way of telling us how hard it is to be God.” – Sidney Sheldon

“The pen is the tongue of the mind.” – Horace

“The purpose of literature is to turn blood into ink.” – T.S. Eliot

“A writer should write with his eyes and a painter paint with his ears.” – Gertrude Stein

“Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.” – William Wordsworth

“Style is to forget all styles.” – Jules Renard

How Can Motivational Quotes Inspire Writers?

Motivational quotes can be a helpful tool for writers, offering psychological benefits that combat self-doubt and encourage us to keep going. Reading a quote from a beloved author can remind a writer of their shared struggles, creating a sense of community and shared experience.

For example, knowing that even the great and all-mighty Stephen King finds the start of a first draft to be daunting can make it easier to face your own blank page.

Also, consider how motivational quotes give us daily reminders of why writing is worth the effort. Because it is. Writing isn’t just a hobby–it’s a cathartic release, a sort of therapy. It’s everything that dwells within a writer.

One of my favorite quotes that has always stuck with me is Ernest Hemingway’s advice to “write drunk, edit sober” because it reminds me to just give in and embrace the raw, unfiltered creativity in my initial drafts, knowing I can always refine it later.

Then there are Anne Lamott’s words on the necessity of “terrible first efforts,” which encourages writers to JUST START WRITING, despite the fear of imperfection. I’m a firm believer in the idea that a crappy first draft is a hundred times better than a blank page.

Do These Quotes Get You Motivated to Write?

Motivational writing quotes are more than just silly words—they’re daily reminders to look for the joy in what you love, to embrace the challenge it demands, and to relish the triumph of the writing process.

We covered quotes that speak to the writing process, motivation, challenges, and craft. Save them or bookmark this page to come back time and time again whenever you need a little pick-me-up to keep those words flowing. Which quote resonates the most with you?

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100 Quotes About Writing To Inspire Your Students

Wise words from authors, poets, historical figures and more.

Many students say the hardest part of school is writing. That’s one of the reasons inspiring students to write can be a challenge. As you look through this list of quotes about writing, you’ll discover many of the great authors actually feel the same way. If you’re looking for a way to encourage your class to put pen to paper, check out this list of 100 relatable quotes about writing from authors, poets, and other influential figures.

Quotes About Writing by Historical Figures

“either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.” – benjamin franklin.

“I can shake off everything as I write; my sorrows disappear, my courage is reborn.” – Anne Frank

“How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.” – Henry David Thoreau

“History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.” – Winston S. Churchill

“If you want to change the world, pick up your pen and write.” – Martin Luther 

“The best way to become acquainted with a subject is to write about it.” – Benjamin Disraeli

Quotes About Writing by Authors

“i kept always two books in my pocket, one to read, one to write in.” – robert louis stevenson.

“You can make anything by writing.” – C.S. Lewis

“To survive, you must tell stories.” – Umberto Eco, The Island of the Day Before

“As a writer, you should not judge, you should understand.” – Ernest Hemingway

“Writers live twice.” – Natalie Goldberg

“Words are a lens to focus one’s mind.” – Ayn Rand

“If a nation loses its storytellers, it loses its childhood.” – Peter Handke

“Write. Rewrite. When not writing or rewriting, read. I know of no shortcuts.” – Larry L. King

“The first sentence can’t be written until the final sentence is written.” – Joyce Carol Oates

“A book is simply the container of an idea—like a bottle; what is inside the book is what matters.” – Angela Carter

 “There is no greater power on this earth than story.” – Libba Bray, The Diviners

“Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader — not the fact that it is raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.” – E.L. Doctorow

“In good writing, words become one with things.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Your intuition knows what to write, so get out of the way.” – Ray Bradbury 

“The real story is not the plot but how the characters unfold by it.” – Vanna Bonta

“What I’ve learned about writing is that sometimes less is more, while often more is grander. And both are true.” – Richelle E. Goodrich

“Character is plot, plot is character.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald

“You can always edit a bad page. You can’t edit a blank page.” – Jodi Picoult

“If there’s a book that you want to read but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” – Toni Morrison

“I’m writing a first draft and reminding myself that I’m simply shoveling sand into a box so that later I can build castles.” – Shannon Hale

“I get a lot of letters from people. They say, ‘I want to be a writer. What should I do?’ I tell them to stop writing to me and get on with it.” – Ruth Rendell

“The greatest part of a writer’s time is spent in reading in order to write. A man will turn over half a library to make a book.” – Samuel Johnson

“Tell the readers a story! Because without a story, you are merely using words to prove you can string them together in logical sentences.” – Anne McCaffrey

“If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.” – Stephen King

“If the book is true, it will find an audience that is meant to read it.” – Wally Lamb

“Words are our most inexhaustible source of magic.” – J.K. Rowling

“We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect.” – Anais Nin

“Read, read, read. Read everything—trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You’ll absorb it. Then write. If it’s good, you’ll find out. If it’s not, throw it out of the window.” – William Faulkner

“You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write.” – Saul Bellow

“The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter. ’Tis the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.” – Mark Twain

“Fiction is the truth inside the lie.” – Stephen King

“The scariest moment is always just before you start.” – Stephen King

“There is no real ending. It’s just the place where you stop the story.” – Frank Herbert

“Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on.” – Louis L’Amour

“After nourishment, shelter, and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world.” – Philip Pullman

“All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.” – Ernest Hemingway

“There is something delicious about writing the first words of a story. You never quite know where they’ll take you.” – Beatrix Potter

“This is how you do it: You sit down at the keyboard and you put one word after another until it’s done. It’s that easy, and that hard.” – Neil Gaiman

“You should write because you love the shape of stories and sentences and the creation of different words on a page. Writing comes from reading, and reading is the finest teacher of how to write.” – Annie Proulx

“A well-composed book is a magic carpet on which we are wafted to a world that we cannot enter in any other way.” – Caroline Gordon

“Imagination is like a muscle. I found out that the more I wrote, the bigger it got.” – Philip José Farmer

“The role of a writer is not to say what we can all say, but what we are unable to say.” – Anais Nin

“Write the kind of story you would like to read. People will give you all sorts of advice about writing, but if you are not writing something you like, no one else will like it either.” – Meg Cabot

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

“Closed in a room, my imagination becomes the universe, and the rest of the world is missing out.” – Criss Jami

“A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.” – G.K. Chesterton

“There comes a time in your life when you have to choose to turn the page, write another book or simply close it.” – Shannon L. Alder

“My aim is to put down on paper what I see and what I feel in the best and simplest way.” – Ernest Hemingway

“Writing is a way of talking without being interrupted.” – Jules Renard

“So long as you write what you wish to write, that is all that matters; and whether it matters for ages or only for hours, nobody can say.” – Virginia Woolf

“All that I hope to say in books, all that I ever hope to say, is that I love the world.” – E.B. White

“You can fix anything but a blank page.” – Nora Roberts

“The hard part about writing a novel is finishing it.” – Ernest Hemingway

“Talent is helpful in writing, but guts are absolutely essential.” – Jessamyn West

“Write what disturbs you, what you fear, what you have not been willing to speak about. Be willing to be split open.” – Natalie Goldberg

“It’s none of their business that you have to learn how to write. Let them think you were born that way.” – Ernest Hemingway

“There is creative reading as well as creative writing.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Ideas aren’t magical; the only tricky part is holding on to one long enough to get it written down.” – Lynn Abbey

“Read a thousand books, and your words will flow like a river.” – Lisa See

“Write about the emotions you fear the most.” – Laurie Halse Anderson

“Writing is a job, a talent, but it’s also the place to go in your head. It is the imaginary friend you drink your tea with in the afternoon.” – Ann Patchett

“If you want to be a writer, stop talking about it and sit down and write!” – Jackie Collins

“A story has no beginning or end: Arbitrarily one chooses that moment of experience from which to look back or from which to look ahead.” – Graham Greene

“A professional writer is an amateur who didn’t quit.” – Richard Bach

“With writing, we have second chances.” – Jonathan Safran Foer

“Written words can also sing.” – Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o

“You cannot hope to sweep someone else away by the force of your writing until it has been done to you.” – Stephen King

“A good story is always more dazzling than a broken piece of truth.” – Diane Setterfield

“A successful book is not made of what is in it, but what is left out of it.” – Mark Twain

“We photograph things in order to drive them out of our minds. My stories are a way of shutting my eyes.” – Franz Kafka

“the first draft is just you telling yourself the story.” – terry pratchett.

“You can’t blame a writer for what the characters say.” – Truman Capote

“Personally I think that grammar is a way to attain beauty.” – Muriel Barbery

“Don’t classify me, read me. I’m a writer, not a genre.” – Carlos Fuentes

“Writing is the only thing that when I do it, I don’t feel I should be doing something else.” – Gloria Steinem

Quotes About Writing by Poets

“i have never started a poem yet whose end i knew. writing a poem is discovering.” – robert frost.

“A synonym is a word you use when you can’t spell the other one.” – Baltasar Gracián

“If I waited for perfection, I would never write a word.” – Margaret Atwood

“Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.” – William Wordsworth

“A word after a word after a word is power.” – Margaret Atwood

“I hate writing, I love having written.” – Dorothy Parker

“Some moments are nice, some are nicer, some are even worth writing about.” – Charles Bukowski

Quotes About Writing by Philosophers

“the purpose of a writer is to keep civilization from destroying itself.” – albert camus.

“A good writer possesses not only his own spirit but also the spirit of his friends.” – Friedrich Nietzsche

“All I need is a sheet of paper and something to write with, and then I can turn the world upside down.” – Friedrich Nietzsche

“To write well, express yourself like the common people, but think like a wise man.” – Aristotle

“It is my ambition to say in ten sentences what others say in a whole book.” – Friedrich Nietzsche

More Quotes About Writing

“write your first draft with your heart. rewrite with your head.” – mike rich.

“I write to give myself strength. I write to be the characters that I am not. I write to explore all the things I’m afraid of.” – Joss Whedon

“Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.” – Pablo Picasso

“Everybody is talented because everybody who is human has something to express.” – Brenda Ueland

“You are what you write.” – Helvy Tiana Rosa

Did you like these 100 quotes about writing? Check out our   80+ Motivational Quotes for Students of All Ages to further inspire your students!

Come share your favorite quotes about writing in the weareteachers helpline group on facebook .

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Blog • Perfecting your Craft

Posted on Mar 29, 2019

170 Writing Quotes by Famous Authors for Every Occasion

About the author.

Reedsy's editorial team is a diverse group of industry experts devoted to helping authors write and publish beautiful books.

About Savannah Cordova

Savannah is a senior editor with Reedsy and a published writer whose work has appeared on Slate, Kirkus, and BookTrib. Her short fiction has appeared in the Owl Canyon Press anthology, "No Bars and a Dead Battery". 

When you're feeling stuck on your novel, an important thing to remember is that we've all been there in the past. That's right — even the J.K Rowling's and Ernest Hemingway's of this world. Which is why it's always a great idea to turn to your most famous peers (and their writing quotes) for inspiration.

Without further ado, here are 170 writing quotes  to guide you through every stage of writing. ( Yes! We've added more since we first published this post! )

The number one piece of advice that most authors have for other authors is to read, read, read. Here’s why.

1. “If you don't have time to read, you don't have the time ( or the tools ) to write. Simple as that.” — Stephen King

2. “You should write because you love the shape of stories and sentences and the creation of different words on a page. Writing comes from reading, and reading is the finest teacher of how to write.” — Annie Proulx

3. “Indeed, learning to write may be part of learning to read. For all I know, writing comes out of a superior devotion to reading.” — Eudora Welty

4. “Read, read, read. Read everything  —  trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You'll absorb it. Then write. If it's good, you'll find out. If it's not, throw it out of the window.” — William Faulkner

5. “I kept always two books in my pocket: one to read, one to write in.” — Robert Louis Stevenson

6. “The Six Golden Rules of Writing: Read, read, read, and write, write, write.” — Ernest Gaines

7. “The greatest part of a writer’s time is spent in reading, in order to write; a man will turn over half a library to make one book.” — Samuel Johnson

8. “Read a thousand books, and your words will flow like a river.” ― Lisa See

9. “One sure window into a person’s soul is his reading list.” — Mary B. W. Tabor

The well of inspiration, we’re afraid, often does run dry. Here are the writing quotes to replenish it and, hopefully, remind you that there might be a story idea waiting for you just around the corner of life.

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10. "If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it." — Toni Morrison

11. “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

12. “Find a subject you care about and which you in your heart feel others should care about. It is this genuine caring, not your games with language, which will be the most compelling and seductive element in your style.” — Stephen King

13. “Most writers regard the truth as their most valuable possession, and therefore are most economical in its use.” — Mark Twain

14. “When I sit down to write a book, I do not say to myself, ‘I am going to produce a work of art.’ I write it because there is some lie that I want to expose, some fact to which I want to draw attention, and my initial concern is to get a hearing.” — George Orwell

15. “Write what disturbs you, what you fear, what you have not been willing to speak about. Be willing to be split open.” — Natalie Goldberg

16. “You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children.” — Madeleine L'Engle

17. “How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.” — Henry David Thoreau

18. “Cheat your landlord if you can and must, but do not try to shortchange the Muse. It cannot be done. You can’t fake quality any more than you can fake a good meal.” — William S. Burroughs

19. “Write what should not be forgotten.” — Isabel Allende

20. “The story must strike a nerve in me. My heart should start pounding when I hear the first line in my head. I start trembling at the risk.” — Susan Sontag

21. “Sometimes the ideas just come to me. Other times I have to sweat and almost bleed to make ideas come. It’s a mysterious process, but I hope I never find out exactly how it works. I like a mystery, as you may have noticed.” — J.K. Rowling

22. “As for ‘Write what you know,’ I was regularly told this as a beginner. I think it’s a very good rule and have always obeyed it. I write about imaginary countries, alien societies on other planets, dragons, wizards, the Napa Valley in 22002. I know these things. I know them better than anybody else possibly could, so it’s my duty to testify about them.” — Ursula K. Le Guin

23. “I’m very lucky in that I don’t understand the world yet. If I understood the world, it would be harder for me to write these books.” — Mo Willems

24. “Ideas are cheap. It’s the execution that is all important.” — George R.R. Martin

25. “If you wait for inspiration to write you’re not a writer, you’re a waiter.” — Dan Poynter

Now, finding your "voice" is not as simple as entering a nationally-televised competition on NBC ( nyuk nyuk! ). Yet your voice will define you as a writer, and these famous writers have plenty of tips and writing quotes for you when it comes to finding it.

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26. “To gain your own voice, you have to forget about having it heard.” — Allen Ginsberg

27. “One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple.” — Jack Kerouac

28. “No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader.” —Robert Frost

29. “It is only by writing, not dreaming about it, that we develop our own style.” — P.D. James

30. “Voice is not just the result of a single sentence or paragraph or page. It’s not even the sum total of a whole story. It’s all your work laid out across the table like the bones and fossils of an unidentified carcass.” — Chuck Wendig

31. “If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it. Or, if proper usage gets in the way, it may have to go. I can't allow what we learned in English composition to disrupt the sound and rhythm of the narrative.” — Elmore Leonard

32. “Your writing voice is the deepest possible reflection of who you are. The job of your voice is not to seduce or flatter or make well-shaped sentences. In your voice, your readers should be able to hear the contents of your mind, your heart, your soul.” — Meg Rosoff

33. “I don’t want just words. If that’s all you have for me, you’d better go.” — F. Scott Fitzgerald

34. “Literature is strewn with the wreckage of men who have minded beyond reason the opinions of others.” — Virginia Woolf

35. “Everywhere I go, I’m asked if the universities stifle writers. My opinion is that they don’t stifle enough of them.” — Flannery O’Connor

36. “There are some books that refuse to be written. They stand their ground year after year and will not be persuaded. It isn’t because the book is not there and worth being written — it is only because the right form of the story does not present itself. There is only one right form for a story and, if you fail to find that form, the story will not tell itself.” — Mark Twain

37. “Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on.” — Louis L’Amour

38. “First, find out what your hero wants, then just follow him.” — Ray Bradbury

39. “All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.” — Ernest Hemingway

40. “Focus more on your desire than on your doubt, and the dream will take care of itself.” — Mark Twain

41. “Being a writer is a very peculiar sort of job: It’s always you versus a blank sheet of paper (or a blank screen) and quite often the blank piece of paper wins.” — Neil Gaiman

42. “It’s none of their business that you have to learn to write. Let them think you were born that way.” — Ernest Hemingway

43. “It doesn’t matter how many book ideas you have if you can’t finish writing your book.” — Joe Bunting

44. “If I waited for perfection, I would never write a word.” — Margaret Atwood

45. “A blank piece of paper is God's way of telling us how hard it is to be God.” — Sidney Sheldon

46. “I am not at all in a humor for writing; I must write on until I am.” — Jane Austen

47. "Get it down. Take chances. It may be bad, but it's the only way you can do anything really good." — William Faulkner

48. “One thing that helps is to give myself permission to write badly. I tell myself that I’m going to do my five or 10 pages no matter what, and that I can always tear them up the following morning if I want. I’ll have lost nothing — writing and tearing up five pages would leave me no further behind than if I took the day off.” — Lawrence Block

49. “Abandon the idea that you are ever going to finish. Lose track of the 400 pages and write just one page for each day, it helps. Then when it gets finished, you are always surprised.” — John Steinbeck

50. “You can fix anything but a blank page.” — Nora Roberts

51. “I don’t wait for moods. You accomplish nothing if you do that. Your mind must know it has got to get down to work.” — Pearl S. Buck

52. “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at the typewriter and bleed.” — Ernest Hemingway

Don’t get discouraged if you get this far and you’re thinking that your first draft is rather poor. These writing quotes are reminders that it’s just part of the process.

53. “The first draft is just you telling yourself the story.” — Terry Pratchett

54. “Get through a draft as quickly as possible.” — Joshua Wolf Shenk

55. “I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.” — Douglas Adams

56. “The first draft of everything is shit.” — Ernest Hemingway

57. “There is no real ending. It’s just the place where you stop the story.” — Frank Herbert

58. “I would advise any beginning writer to write the first drafts as if no one else will ever read them — without a thought about publication — and only in the last draft to consider how the work will look from the outside.” — Anne Tyler

59. “I just give myself permission to suck. I delete about 90 percent of my first drafts, so it doesn’t really matter much if on a particular day I write beautiful and brilliant prose that will stick in the minds of my readers forever, because there’s a 90 percent chance I’m just going to delete whatever I write anyway. I find this hugely liberating.” — John Green

60. “Be willing to write really badly.” — Jennifer Egan

61. “On first drafts: It is completely raw, the sort of thing I feel free to do with the door shut — it’s the story undressed, standing up in nothing but its socks and undershorts.” — Stephen King

62. “I do not over-intellectualise the production process. I try to keep it simple: Tell the damned story.” — Tom Clancy

63. “Anyone who says writing is easy isn’t doing it right.” — Amy Joy

64. “You fail only if you stop writing.” — Ray Bradbury

65. “If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn't brood. I'd type a little faster.” — Isaac Asimov

66. “Just write every day of your life. Read intensely. Then see what happens. Most of my friends who are put on that diet have very pleasant careers.” — Ray Bradbury

67. “You don’t start out writing good stuff. You start out writing crap and thinking it’s good stuff, and then gradually you get better at it. That’s why I say one of the most valuable traits is persistence.” ― Octavia E. Butler

68. “I believe myself that a good writer doesn’t really need to be told anything except to keep at it.” — Chinua Achebe

69. “The secret to being a writer is that you have to write. It’s not enough to think about writing or to study literature or plan a future life as an author. You really have to lock yourself away, alone, and get to work.” — Augusten Burroughs

70. “It is by sitting down to write every morning that one becomes a writer.” — Gerald Brenan

71. “Talent is insignificant. I know a lot of talented ruins. Beyond talent lie all the usual words: discipline, love, luck, but most of all, endurance.” — James Baldwin

72. “You just have to go on when it is worst and most helpless — there is only one thing to do with a novel and that is go straight on through to the end of the damn thing.” — Ernest Hemingway

73. “We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down.” — Kurt Vonnegut

74. “The nearest I have to a rule is a Post-it on the wall in front of my desk saying ‘Faire et se taire’ from Flaubert. Which I translate for myself as ‘Shut up and get on with it.’” — Helen Simpson

75. “I’ve been writing since I was six. It is a compulsion, so I can’t really say where the desire came from; I’ve always had it. My breakthrough with the first book came through persistence, because a lot of publishers turned it down.” — J.K. Rowling

76. “Any man who keeps working is not a failure. He may not be a great writer, but if he applies the old-fashioned virtues of hard, constant labor, he’ll eventually make some kind of career for himself as a writer.” — Ray Bradbury

77. “It is worth mentioning, for future reference, that the creative power which bubbles so pleasantly in beginning a new book quiets down after a time, and one goes on more steadily. Doubts creep in. Then one becomes resigned. Determination not to give in, and the sense of an impending shape keep one at it more than anything.” — Virginia Woolf

78. “A professional writer is an amateur who didn’t quit.” — Richard Bach

“Write drunk, edit sober” might be one of the most famous writing quotes about editing, but we can’t all outdrink Ernest Hemingway. Which is why these other words of wisdom and writing quotes exist!

79. “You can always edit a bad page. You can’t edit a blank page.” ― Jodi Picoult

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80. “When your story is ready for a rewrite, cut it to the bone. Get rid of every ounce of excess fat. This is going to hurt; revising a story down to the bare essentials is always a little like murdering children, but it must be done.” — Stephen King

81. “The best advice on writing was given to me by my first editor, Michael Korda, of Simon and Schuster, while writing my first book. 'Finish your first draft and then we'll talk,' he said. It took me a long time to realize how good the advice was. Even if you write it wrong, write and finish your first draft. Only then, when you have a flawed whole, do you know what you have to fix.” — Dominick Dunne

82. “Editing might be a bloody trade, but knives aren’t the exclusive property of butchers. Surgeons use them too.” — Blake Morrison

83. “The main thing I try to do is write as clearly as I can. I rewrite a good deal to make it clear.” — E.B. White

84. “You write to communicate to the hearts and minds of others what's burning inside you, and we edit to let the fire show through the smoke.” — Arthur Plotnik

85. “Half my life is an act of revision.” — John Irving

86. “I'm all for the scissors. I believe more in the scissors than I do in the pencil.” — Truman Capote

87. “It is perfectly okay to write garbage — as long as you edit brilliantly.” — C. J. Cherryh

88. “I've found the best way to revise your own work is to pretend that somebody else wrote it and then to rip the living shit out of it.” ― Don Roff

89. “Only kings, presidents, editors, and people with tapeworms have the right to use the editorial 'we'.” — Mark Twain

90. “So the writer who breeds more words than he needs, is making a chore for the reader who reads.” ― Dr. Seuss

91. “Not that the story need be long, but it will take a long while to make it short.” — Henry David Thoreau

92. “I would write a book, or a short story, at least three times — once to understand it, the second time to improve the prose, and a third to compel it to say what it still must say. Somewhere I put it this way: first drafts are for learning what one's fiction wants him to say. Revision works with that knowledge to enlarge and enhance an idea, to reform it. Revision is one of the exquisite pleasures of writing.” — Bernard Malamud

93. “No author dislikes to be edited as much as he dislikes not to be published.” — Russell Lynes

94. “Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now.” — Annie Dillard

95. “No passion in the world is equal to the passion to alter someone else's draft.” — H.G. Wells

96. “A writer is a world trapped in a person.” — Victor Hugo

97. “A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.” — Thomas Mann

98. “People say, ‘What advice do you have for people who want to be writers?’ I say, they don’t really need advice, they know they want to be writers, and they’re gonna do it. Those people who know that they really want to do this and are cut out for it, they know it.” — R.L. Stine

99. “As a writer, you should not judge, you should understand.” ― Ernest Hemingway

100. “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

101. “Let me live, love, and say it well in good sentences.” — Sylvia Plath

102. “I go out to my little office, where I’ve got a manuscript, and the last page I was happy with is on top. I read that, and it’s like getting on a taxiway. I’m able to go through and revise it and put myself — click — back into that world.” — Stephen King

103. “I think all writing is a disease. You can’t stop it.” — William Carlos Williams

104. “Each writer is born with a repertory company in his head. Shakespeare has perhaps 20 players. I have 10 or so, and that’s a lot. As you get older, you become more skillful at casting them.” — Gore Vidal

105. “For your born writer, nothing is so healing as the realization that he has come upon the right word.” — Catherine Drinker Bowen

106. “The task of a writer consists of being able to make something out of an idea.” — Thomas Mann

107. “Some editors are failed writers, but so are most writers.” — T.S. Eliot

108. “Many people hear voices when no one is there. Some of them are called mad and are shut up in rooms where they stare at the walls all day. Others are called writers and they do pretty much the same thing.” — Margaret Chittenden

109. “A writer never has a vacation. For a writer life consists of either writing or thinking about writing.” — Eugene Ionesco

110. “Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.” — Benjamin Franklin

111. “A person is a fool to become a writer. His only compensation is absolute freedom. He has no master except his own soul, and that, I am sure, is why he does it.” — Roald Dahl

112. “Writing is the only thing that, when I do it, I don’t feel I should be doing something else.” — Gloria Steinem

From cavemen to our modern day in the 21st-century, we have written our joys and sorrows throughout history. What compels us to write? Here’s what some of the most beloved writers we know have to say.

113. “I can shake off everything as I write; my sorrows disappear, my courage is reborn.” — Anne Frank

114. “We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect.” — Anais Nin

115. “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” ― Maya Angelou

116. “The very reason I write is so that I might not sleepwalk through my entire life.” — Zadie Smith

117. “The good writing of any age has always been the product of someone’s neurosis.” — William Styron

118. “No matter what people tell you, words and ideas can change the world.” — Robin Williams

119. “Words can be like X-rays if you use them properly — they'll go through anything. You read and you're pierced.” — Aldous Huxley

120. “You can make anything by writing.” — C.S. Lewis

121. “Writers live twice.” —  Natalie Goldberg

122. “History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.” — Winston Churchill

123. “Anybody can make history. Only a great man can write it.” — Oscar Wilde

124. “You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.” — Ray Bradbury

125. “Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass .” ― Anton Chekhov

126. “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

127. “There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.” — Somerset Maugham

128. “Any word you have to hunt for in a thesaurus is the wrong word. There are no exceptions to this rule.” — Stephen King

129. “Substitute 'damn' every time you're inclined to write 'very;' your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.” — Mark Twain

130. “Find your best time of the day for writing and write. Don’t let anything else interfere. Afterwards it won’t matter to you that the kitchen is a mess.” — Esther Freud

131. “Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: Do not use semicolons. [...] All they do is show you've been to college.” — Kurt Vonnegut

132. “To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme.” — Herman Melville

133. “Write drunk, edit sober.” — Ernest Hemingway

134. “The difference between the almost right word and the right word is the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.” — Mark Twain

135. “The main rule of writing is that if you do it with enough assurance and confidence, you’re allowed to do whatever you like. (That may be a rule for life as well as for writing. But it’s definitely true for writing.) So write your story as it needs to be written. Write it ­honestly, and tell it as best you can. I’m not sure that there are any other rules. Not ones that matter.” — Neil Gaiman

136. “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 Yolen

137. “Style means the right word. The rest matters little.” — Jules Renard

138. “My aim in constructing sentences is to make the sentence utterly easy to understand, writing what I call transparent prose. I’ve failed dreadfully if you have to read a sentence twice to figure out what I meant.” — Ken Follett

139. “And one of [the things you learn as you get older] is, you really need less… My model for this is late Beethoven. He moves so strangely and quite suddenly sometimes from place to place in his music, in the late quartets. He knows where he’s going and he just doesn’t want to waste all that time getting there… One is aware of this as one gets older. You can’t waste time.” — Ursula K. Le Guin

140. “ Part 1. I notice that you use plain, simple language, short words and brief sentences. That is the way to write English — it is the modern way and the best way. Stick to it; don’t let fluff and flowers and verbosity creep in . Part 2. When you catch an adjective, kill it. No, I don’t mean utterly, but kill most of them – then the rest will be valuable. They weaken when they are close together. They give strength when they are wide apart. Part 3. An adjective habit, or a wordy, diffuse, flowery habit, once fastened upon a person, is as hard to get rid of as any other vice.” — Mark Twain

“You miss 100% of the shots that you never take — Wayne Gretsky,” as Michael Scott once said. In tribute to this sentiment, these writing quotes help show why it’s important not to let failure or rejection get you down.

141. “You can’t let praise or criticism get to you. It’s a weakness to get caught up in either one.” — John Wooden

142. “Rejection slips, or form letters, however tactfully phrased, are lacerations of the soul, if not quite inventions of the devil — but there is no way around them.” — Isaac Asimov

143. “Was I bitter? Absolutely. Hurt? You bet your sweet ass I was hurt. Who doesn’t feel a part of their heart break at rejection. You ask yourself every question you can think of, what, why, how come, and then your sadness turns to anger. That’s my favorite part. It drives me, feeds me, and makes one hell of a story.” — Jennifer Salaiz

144. “I love my rejection slips. They show me I try.” — Sylvia Plath

145. “I would advise anyone who aspires to a writing career that before developing his talent, he would be wise to develop a thick hide.” — Harper Lee

147. “I used to save all my rejection slips because I told myself, one day I’m going to autograph these and auction them. And then I lost the box.” — James Lee Burke

148. “This manuscript of yours that has just come back from another editor is a precious package. Don’t consider it rejected. Consider that you’ve addressed it ‘to the editor who can appreciate my work’ and it has simply come back stamped ‘Not at this address’. Just keep looking for the right address.” — Barbara Kingsolver

149. “To ward off a feeling of failure, she joked that she could wallpaper her bathroom with rejection slips, which she chose not to see as messages to stop, but rather as tickets to the game.” — Anita Shreve

150. “Remember: when people tell you something’s wrong or doesn’t work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong.” — Neil Gaiman

151. “The artist doesn’t have time to listen to the critics. The ones who want to be writers read the reviews, the ones who want to write don’t have the time to read reviews.” — William Faulkner

152. “I think that you have to believe in your destiny; that you will succeed, you will meet a lot of rejection and it is not always a straight path, there will be detours — so enjoy the view.” — Michael York

153. “I went for years not finishing anything. Because, of course, when you finish something you can be judged.” — Erica Jong

154. “I tell writers to keep reading, reading, reading. Read widely and deeply. And I tell them not to give up even after getting rejection letters. And only write what you love.” — Anita Diamant

155. “I could write an entertaining novel about rejection slips, but I fear it would be overly long.” — Louise Brown

156. “I had immediate success in the sense that I sold something right off the bat. I thought it was going to be a piece of cake and it really wasn’t. I have drawers full of — or I did have — drawers full of rejection slips.” — Fred Saberhagen

157. “An absolutely necessary part of a writer’s equipment, almost as necessary as talent, is the ability to stand up under punishment, both the punishment the world hands out and the punishment he inflicts upon himself.” — Irwin Shaw

158. “Failures are finger posts on the road to achievement.” — C. S. Lewis

Why does writing matter? If there’s anyone who might know the answer, it’s the people who write — and continue to write, despite adverse circumstances. Here are a few pennies for their thoughts.

159. “Every secret of a writer’s soul, every experience of his life, every quality of his mind, is written large in his works.” — Virginia Woolf

160. “If the book is true, it will find an audience that is meant to read it.” — Wally Lamb

161. “A word after a word after a word is power.” — Margaret Atwood

162. “If you want to change the world, pick up your pen and write.” — Martin Luther

163. “The purpose of a writer is to keep civilization from destroying itself.” — Albert Camus

164. “Good fiction’s job is to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.” — David Foster Wallace

165. “After nourishment, shelter and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world.” — Philip Pullman

166. “All stories have to at least try to explain some small portion of the meaning of life.” — Gene Weingarten

167. “If a nation loses its storytellers, it loses its childhood.” — Peter Handke

168. “The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense.” — Tom Clancy

169. “If I had to give young writers advice, I would say don’t listen to writers talking about writing or themselves.” — Lillian Hellman

170. “Don’t take anyone’s writing advice too seriously.” — Lev Grossman

Of course, writing quotes by themselves won't write the book for you — you alone have that power. However, we hope that this post has helped inspire you in some way! If you're looking for more in-depth resources, you can check out these guides:

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• How to Develop a Strong Theme ( read here )
• How to Make a Usable Character Profile ( read here )
• How to Become a Better Writer Today ( read here )

2 responses

Brian Welte says:

08/05/2019 – 12:28

Here's a quote I absolutely adore: "The author, in his work, must be like God in the Universe, present everywhere and visible nowhere" [Quote from Gustave Flaubert]

Comments are currently closed.

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