Writing Quotes: top 100 famous quotes about Writing

Writing Quotes & Sayings

Happy to read and share the best inspirational Writing quotes, sayings and quotations on Wise Famous Quotes.

There are no rules in writing. There are useful principles. Throw them away when they're not useful. But always know what you're throwing away. — Will Shetterly

But I never want to get to the point where I write a safe song or one that represents my sense of a subject in order to appear civilized. — Suzanne Vega

It's exciting to watch people do and write and say what they feel like doing, writing and saying. — Uzo Aduba

The writer learns to write, in the last resort, only by writing. He must get words onto paper even if he is dissatisfied with them. — Paul Johnson

Expectation is the dirtiest word in a traveler's vocabulary. — John Early

He who writes in blood and aphorisms does not want to be read, he wants to be learned by heart. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Loafing is the most productive part of a writer's life. — James Norman Hall

Never believe anything you think about yourself as a writer when you're not writing. — David Milch

My teacher has a reading problem. He can't read my writing — Leopold Fechtner

One of the notebooks was for musings and pep talks. ... The other notebooks were for writing out the novel the way authors had done for centuries. — Gail Godwin

People shout out for songs and I don't even remember writing them. — Bobby Womack

Some drink. Some do drugs. I writes — Pamela Morris

You are what you write. — Helvy Tiana Rosa

I want to write something that makes it easy for young people to look right into the abyss. — Dave Mustaine

Why does the writing make us chase the writer? Why can't we leave well enough alone? Why aren't the books enough? — Julian Barnes

Writing is a deeper sleep than death.
Just as one wouldn't pull a corpse from its grave,
I can't be dragged from my desk at night. — Franz Kafka

One can write, think and pray exclusively of others; dreams are all egocentric. — Evelyn Waugh

After seven years of writing - and working many jobs to support my family - I finally got published. — Lloyd Alexander

I don't write music for sissy ears. — Charles Ives

I'm not really one to be on camera, I'd rather be writing songs. — Jon Foreman

Your character that you create in your writing not only represents who you are, but also represents a number of people who you've met along the way. — Grant Morrison

The further you go in writing the more alone you are. — Ernest Hemingway,

Poets deal in writing about feelings and trying to find the language and images for intense feelings. — Carol Ann Duffy

A forbidden writing is thought to be a certain spark of truth, that flies up in the face of them who seek to tread it out. — Francis Bacon

Revision means throwing out the boring crap and making what's left sound natural. — Laurie Halse Anderson

Every drop of ink in my pen ran cold. — Horace Walpole

You can't think yourself out of a writing block; you have to write yourself out of a thinking block. — John Rogers

There are favorable hours for reading a book, as for writing it. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The writings are built by imagination. Emotions fill the colours to them. — Sameer Khan

I get very invested in characters, it's the only way I find that I can write a book and really make it work. — Gail Simone

I know you shouldn't spit in your own soup but I think most crime writing is like TV and doesn't make enormous demands on one's intellect. — Donna Leon

Whenever something good happens, write it down. Buy a special notebook ... and use it to list all the good in your life. — Peter McWilliams

To me, writing is like learning to ride a bike. At first you have your training wheels on but before you know it, you have graduated to a ten speed!! — Lorine S. Thomas

It doesn't take five novels to become a great writer ... it takes one novel rewritten five different times. — B. Chancellor Burgweger

Rejection is no badge of honour. — Johnny Rich

The unspoken factor is love. The reason I can work so hard at my writing is that it's not work for me. — John Irving

No man, even though he be Shakespeare, can write perfectly when his web is woven of threads that have been spun in many lands. — William Butler Yeats

There is no such thing as a good writer and a bad liar. — Amy Bloom

I love writing, but I have that E. E. Cummings idea that as long as you stay inside the rules of your own world, it doesn't matter what it is. — Pete Wentz

Writing was something I always as a kid thought would be fabulous and glamorous to be a writer. — Ann Leckie

I don't believe in that country any longer. I'm not interested. I'm writing in the language, and I like the language. — Joseph Brodsky

You're not gonna start writing 'Hardy loves Miracle' all over your notebooks, are you? Sing her a song and post it on YouTube? — M. Leighton

Tomorrow may be hell, but today was a good writing day, and on the good writing days nothing else matters. — Neil Gaiman

If this whole writing thing doesn't work out, I'll be getting right back on the pole. — Diablo Cody

Names that tell stories have been worth millions of dollars. So a great deal of research often proceeds the selection of a name — Claude C. Hopkins

Boredom provides a stronger inclination to write than anything. — Vikram Seth

A professional writer is an amateur who didn't quit. — Richard Bach

I make writing as much a part of my life as I do eating or listening to music. — Maya Angelou

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

I am often asked why I write, and I don't know really
I just want to. — John Ashbery

I consider myself a writer. I don't favour any type of writing. I sometimes wish short stories came more easily to me. — James Lasdun

I will carry on writing, to be sure. But I don't know if I would want to publish again after Harry Potter. — J.K. Rowling

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

I speak to the paper, as I speak to the first person I meet. — Michel De Montaigne

That's all we have, finally, the words, and they had better be the right ones. — Raymond Carver

My biggest lesson ... was to try and create narrators that were believable ... so the listener becomes really invested in the story or the song. — Kristian Bush

Being able to read well in public and talk about your work in an engaging fashion is part of most writers' job specification. — Sara Sheridan

I could never write my memoirs, just because too many people are still alive and would be hurt. — Bruce Willis

A few hints as to literary craftsmanship may be useful to budding historians. First and foremost, get writing! — Samuel Eliot Morison

Every painting tells a story. — A.D. Posey

Yes the sex scenes are explicit but we all love the dirty bits! — Airam

When writing poetry, it is not that produces a bright idea, but the bright idea that kindles the fire of. — Cesare Pavese

I miss you so much your absence causes me, at times, accute pain. I don't mean sexually. I mean in connection with my writing. — William S. Burroughs

Do you wait for things to happen, or do you make them happen yourself? I believe in writing your own story. — Charlotte Eriksson

All of fiction is truthful. What you create is your own truth and no one can take that away or change it. — Walter Dean Myers

Writing heals my heart like no pill ever could. — Rob Bignell, Editor

Poor, harmless paper, that might have gone to print a Shakespeare on, and was instead so clumsily defaced with nonsense. — Robert Louis Stevenson

This is a little secret that all writers share: We have two lives; the one we live on Earth and the one we live in our books. — Chrys Fey

You're miserable, edgy and tired. You're in the perfect mood for journalism. — Warren Ellis

Sometimes it is just about taking the first step, only then can greatness find us. — Colleen Mariotti

It was Noel Coward whose technique I envied and tried to emulate. I collected all his records and writing. — Kenneth Williams

My style of lyric-writing is very specific and has a lot of details, and I think people react most to that. — Craig Finn

It is almost possible to measure a writer's skill by the dexterity with which he repeats, and yet avoids monotony. — George G. Williams

I love the process of creating a story that will resonate in my readers lives ~ either inspiring them, educating them, or entertaining them. — Kathryn Albright

Focus on action! Go on! Do it! Call them! Write it! Say it! Grab it! Who knows what 'awesome stuff' might happen? Yes - Action is the key! — David Ryan

I think writing, my writing, is a species of mediumship. I become the person. — Virginia Woolf

No amount of therapy can replace the joy of revenge writing. — Mylo Carbia

Old memories are very easy to get except that once you write about something you've destroyed it. — Annie Dillard

The reason one writes isn't the fact he wants to say something. He writes because he has something to say. — F Scott Fitzgerald

Writing is like shadow boxing. Editing is when the shadows fight back. — Adam Copeland

The life of a writer is tragic: the more we advance, the farther there is to go and the more there is to say, the less time there is to say it. — Gabrielle Roy

Writing what you wished was the most dangerous form of wishful thinking. — Amy Tan

There's magic in the unknown; a brooding fertility in the unknowable that can work on the reader's imagination long after a book is finished. — Claire Wingfield

There are lots of ways of answering a letter - and writing doesn't happen to be mine. — Edith Wharton

Writing is a prayer. — Franz Kafka

for the average team, insisting on writing tests first, before functional coding, improves quality. — David J. Anderson

I never started from ideas but always from character. — Ivan Turgenev

I do not want to have the feeling of writing 'for eternity', so to speak. — Elfriede Jelinek

People don't read to enlighten themselves or seek to gain some valuable insight into their own psychology. People read to escape. — Dermot Davis

It is not a crime to commit First Degree Writing — Temple Emmet Williams

The purpose of paragraphing is to give the reader a rest. The writer is saying ... : Have you got that? If so, I'll go to the next point. — Henry Watson Fowler

Beginnings are so important. Just finding that right moment to introduce this character, this world, it's everything. — Aryn Kyle

Being an author is to have a toe in the creative pool and a foot in the vat of commerce. — Fennel Hudson

People try to force things. It's disastrous. Just leave your mind alone. Your intuition knows what it wants to write, so get out of the way. — Ray Bradbury

Well, yes: people write poems when they are in love, but a wise man will not print them. — Hans Christian Andersen

Before I write I let my mind go blind and let the lord do his thing. — Tupac Shakur

Writing is a struggle no matter what the genre. — Susan Wiggs

I think everything we do, on one level or another, as writers, most of our writing is informed by our world view. — Ted Dekker

I don't write songs apart from theatrical pieces. I'm not interested in writing songs qua songs. — Stephen Sondheim

The person who writes for fools is always sure of a large audience. — Arthur Schopenhauer