Creative Writing Quotes

116 quotes by 101 authors

Writing comes more easily if you have something to say. — Sholem Asch
Creative writing programmes are not very necessary. They just exist so that people like us can make a living. — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Writing has laws of perspective, of light and shade just as painting does, or music. If you are born knowing them, fine. If not, learn… — Truman Capote
Metaphors have a way of holding the most truth in the least space. — Orson Scott Card
The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense. — Tom Clancy
A creative writing class may be one of the last places you can go where your life still matters. — Richard Hugo
Creativity is a habit, and the best creativity is a result of good work habits. That's it in a nutshell ... In order to be… — Twyla Tharp
I am an English major in school with an emphasis in creative writing. I think hearing Maya Angelou speak at school last year was one… — Fred Savage
Metaphors are not user-friendly. They're difficult to find and difficult to use well. Unfortunately, metaphors are a mainstay of good lyric writing-indeed of most creative… — Pat Pattison
We have always learned about life by dramatising our questions. — Celia Brayfield
If you can't play all the instruments in the orchestra of story, no matter what music may be in your imagination, you're condemned to hum… — Robert McKee
The novelist's ambition is not to do something better than his predecessors but to see what they did not see, say what they did not… — Milan Kundera
Without craft, art remains private. Without art, craft is merely hackwork. — Joyce Carol Oates
One should be able to return to the first sentence of a novel and find the resonances of the entire work. — Gloria Naylor
All the elements of good writing depend on the writer's skill in choosing one word instead of another. — Francine Prose
Good prose almost always requires both showing and telling, scenes and summary, the two basic components of creative prose. — Laurie Alberts
To be the kind of writer you want to be, you must first be the kind of thinker you want to be. — Ayn Rand
By what he chooses to present and by how he presents it, any author expresses his fundamental, metaphysical values. — Ayn Rand
If he can give his readers no reason why they should read his book, except that the events happened to him, it is not a… — Ayn Rand
A hero knows it takes hard work and a long time to get published; a fool thinks it should happen immediately, because he thinks heÃ•s… — James Scott

Who Wrote These Creative Writing Quotes

101 authors contributed a total of 116 Creative Writing Quotes, led by these top contributors: