Writing Quotes · Page 417

A blank piece of paper is God's way of telling us how hard it is to be God.

— Sidney Sheldon

Usually writer's block arises when something is wrong internally with the story.

— Meg Cabot

It's easy to just write about love, because everyone can relate, but I like variety.

— Kali Uchis

“You can’t always write what you know—not exactly what you know. You can, however, write what you see.”

— Brandon Sanderson

If you care about who I want to write about, I'll write about the people you want to read about.

— Robert Hilburn

If you dont [sic] say what you want, what's the sense of writing?

— Jack Kerouac

“But I did not want to be good. I wanted to be a writer.”

— Isabel Huggan

It takes me forever to write songs most of the time.

— Mark Linkous

I started writing books for children because I could illustrate them myself and because, in my innocence, I thought they'd be easier.

— Mark Haddon

“Do you have any idea how hard a story is to write? My brain is jumpy, and my heart doesn't know where…

— Jenny Hubbard

“His writing had become, like a stash of rare and troubling pornography, something that must be kept hidden, an obsession that other…

— Kevin Wilson

I tend to write a pretty half and half split of, like, slow, morose things and then sort of more upbeat stuff.

— James Mercer

I've never played instruments. I've always been a singer or a writer, for that matter. But I started playing in bands when…

— Ivan Moody

It really matters to writers to find and treasure readers, all the more when they're on the other side of the world.

— Colm Toibin

When I was writing for children, I was writing genre fiction. It was like making a good chair. It needed four legs…

— Mark Haddon

I am not conscious of working especially hard, or of 'working' at all. Writing and teaching have always been, for me, so…

— Joyce Carol Oates

“[...] as I have seen with other people whose sense of their work is vocational rather than pragmatic, my desire to write,…

— Stephanie Dowrick

But everything written has style. The list of ingredients on the side of a cornflakes box has style. And everything literary has…

— Ali Smith

Sometimes I'll have an end in mind, but it's always false, always corny, just a dumb idea anyone could have, sitting on…

— Charles D'Ambrosio

Is there a secret? Yes. Anaïs Nin and Pauline Réage and Anne Rampling and Erica Jong all knew it. E. L. James…

— M.J. Rose

I hope when people ask what you're going to do with your English degree and/or creative writing degree you'll say: Continue my…

— Cheryl Strayed

One of my favorite writers is short story writer/essayist Jorge Luis Borges, who was blind. I'm not claiming to be anything remotely…

— Larry Howes

I don't read a lot of the sports, because I think people sometimes either build it up, or you have this guy…

— Herschel Walker

It was always about the future of writers, and about the way writers are treated in the future, and I think that…

— Edward Allen Bernero

“The hotel shop only had two decent books, and I'd written both of them”

— Douglas Adams

“One of Scotland's most important cultural exports - stories.”

— Sara Sheridan

I didn't study writing or drama or anything like that... that was not really a viable route for me.

— Jed Mercurio

It is true that, with TV, a writer gets a great deal more respect.

— Jon Spaihts

For a writer it's a dream to sit and watch people as close as possible.

— Jill Scott

Just write, get better, keep writing, keep getting better. It's the only thing you can control.

— Roger Ebert

I was a standup comedian, which is kind of like writing and directing yourself.

— Paul Feig

It takes writing a billion bad words before you get to the good ones.

— Ray Bradbury

Writing and learning and thinking are the same process.

— William Zinsser

I like the idea of trying to write a book in every genre.

— China Mieville

Before you came the world was prose. Now poetry is born.

— Nizar Qabbani

I am aware of being in a beautiful prison, from which I can only escape by writing.

— Anais Nin

I write plays for people who wouldn't be seen dead in the theatre.

— Barrie Keeffe

Ain't it funny what people say? Ain't it funny what people write?

— Rich Mullins

The impulse to write a novel comes from a momentary unified vision of life.

— Angus Wilson

Writing is not about self-expression; it is about putting words on paper.

— Gordon Lish