Writing Quotes

18562 Writing quotes by 6643 unique authors

Too many poets write poems which are only difficult on the surface, difficult because the dramatic situation is easily misunderstood. It's not difficult to write… — Miller Williams
The mere habit of writing, of constantly keeping at it, of never giving up, ultimately teaches you how to write. — Gabriel Fielding
There are significant moments in everyone's day that can make literature. That's what you ought to write about. — Raymond Carver
I distrust summaries, any kind of gliding through time, any too great a claim that one is in control of what one recounts; I think… — Harold Brodkey
Write a novel if you must, but think of money as an unlikely accident. Get your reward out of writing it, and try to be… — Pearl S. Buck
Writing means revealing oneself to excess. — Franz Kafka
You can't be afraid to deal with your demons. You've got to go there to be able to write. — Lucinda Williams
I feel that whatever virtues the novel may have are very much connected with the limitations you mention. I am not writing a conventional novel,… — Flannery O'Connor
No one can write a best seller by trying to. He must write with complete sincerity; the clichés that make you laugh, the hackneyed characters,… — W. Somerset Maugham
What is easy to read has been difficult to write. The labour of writing and rewriting, correcting and recorrecting, is the due exacted by every… — G. M. Trevelyan
I have thought many times since that if poets when they get discouraged would blow their brains out, they could write very much better when… — Mark Twain
Mere literary talent is common; what is rare is endurance, the continuing desire to work hard at writing. — Donald Hall
The first thing you have to consider when writing a novel is your story, and then your story - and then your story! — Ford Madox Ford
The whole process of writing a novel is having this great, beautiful idea and then spoiling it. — Diane Johnson
You want in all cases for the story to get through the writing. — Alice Munro
Writing a first draft is like groping one's way into a dark room, or overhearing a faint conversation, or telling a joke whose punchline you've… — Ted Solotaroff
So I made an outline. Well, you know, days are going by, and I am not writing anything because this thing is laid out in… — Steve Tesich
Try and write straight English; never using slang except in dialogue and then only when unavoidable. Because all slang goes sour in a short time.… — Ernest Hemingway
If only she could put them together, she felt, write them out in some sentence, then she would have got at the truth of things. — Virginia Woolf
Cross out as many adjectives and adverbs as you can. ... It is comprehensible when I write: "The man sat on the grass," because it… — Anton Chekhov
Write from what you know into what you don't know. — Grace Paley
You need a good editor because every writer thinks he can write a War and Peace, but by the time he gets it on paper,… — Samuel Johnson
Critics sometimes appear to be addressing themselves to works other than those I remember writing. — Joyce Carol Oates
The artists who want to be writers, read the reviews; the artists who want to write, don't. — William Faulkner
That's very nice if they want to publish you, but don't pay too much attention to it. It will toss you away. Just continue to… — Natalie Goldberg

Who Wrote These Writing Quotes

6,643 authors contributed a total of 18,562 Writing Quotes, led by these top contributors: