Writing Quotes by John Steinbeck

In utter loneliness a writer tries to explain the inexplicable.

— John Steinbeck

Poetry is the mathematics of writing and closely kin to music.

— John Steinbeck

“The only good writer was a dead writer.”

— John Steinbeck

I guess there are never enough books.

— John Steinbeck

A good writer always works at the impossible.

— John Steinbeck

Give a critic an inch, he'll write a play.

— John Steinbeck

Abandon the idea that you are ever going to finish.

— John Steinbeck

“A writer of stories is a liar.”

— John Steinbeck

The profession of book writing makes horse racing seem like a solid, stable business.

— John Steinbeck

Write freely and as rapidly as possible and throw the whole thing on paper.

— John Steinbeck

Writers are a little below clowns and a little above trained seals.

— John Steinbeck

“Unless a writer's capable of solitude, he should leave books alone and go into the theater.”

— John Steinbeck

“I was writing of something I did not know about, and it seems to me that in a so-called writer this is…

— John Steinbeck

The craft or art of writing is the clumsy attempt to find symbols for the wordlessness.

— John Steinbeck

In writing, habit seems to be a much stronger force than either willpower or inspiration.

— John Steinbeck

Maybe the hardest thing in writing is simply to tell the truth about things as we see them.

— John Steinbeck

Your audience is one single reader. I have found that sometimes it helps to pick out one person-a real person you know,…

— John Steinbeck

Abandon the idea that you are ever going to finish. Lose track of the 400 pages and write just one page a…

— John Steinbeck

The basic rule [of writing] given us was simple and heartbreaking. A story to be effective had to convey something from the…

— John Steinbeck

I write because I like to write. I find joy in the texture and tone and rhythm of words. It is a…

— John Steinbeck

I don't think there is a single sentence in this whole book [East of Eden] that does not either develop character, carry…

— John Steinbeck

To finish is sadness to a writer — a little death. He puts the last word down and it is done. But…

— John Steinbeck

“Then there were his education and his reading, the books he bought and borrowed, his knowledge of things that could not be…

— John Steinbeck

I hold that a writer who does not passionately believe in the perfectibility of man has no dedication nor any membership in…

— John Steinbeck

“The writer is delegated to declare and to celebrate man's proven capacity for greatness of heart and spirit—for gallantry in defeat, for…

— John Steinbeck

“A writer out of loneliness is trying to communicate like a distant star sending signals. He isn't telling, or teaching, or ordering.…

— John Steinbeck

“In every bit of honest writing in the world, there is a base theme. Try to understand men, if you understand each…

— John Steinbeck

“Write freely and as rapidly as possible and throw the whole thing on paper. Never correct or rewrite until the whole thing…

— John Steinbeck

After the bare requisites to living and reproducing, man wants most to leave some record of himself, a proof, perhaps, that he…

— John Steinbeck

Boileau said that Kings, Gods and Heroes only were fit subjects for literature. The writer can only write about what he admires.…

— John Steinbeck

A woman journalist in England asked me why Americans usually wrote about their childhood and a past that happened only in imagination,…

— John Steinbeck

The writer is delegated to declare and to celebrate man's proven capacity for greatness of heart and spirit—for gallantry in defeat, for…

— John Steinbeck

“A writer out of loneliness is trying to communicate like a distant star sending signals. He isn't telling, or teaching, or ordering.…

— John Steinbeck

I start out to write five days a week, and then it runs to six days and finally seven. Then, eventually, that…

— John Steinbeck

“Maybe it’s like this, Max--you know how, when you are working on a long and ordered piece, all sorts of bright and…

— John Steinbeck

“Literature is as old as speech. It grew out of human need for it and it has not changed except to become…

— John Steinbeck

The design of a book is the pattern of a reality controlled and shaped by the mind of the writer. This is…

— John Steinbeck

I nearly always write — just as I nearly always breathe.

— John Steinbeck

The discipline of the written word punishes both stupidity and dishonesty.

— John Steinbeck

The design of a book is the pattern of a reality controlled and shaped by the mind of a writer.

— John Steinbeck