Writing Quotes

18562 Writing quotes by 6643 unique authors

Don't use metaphors in fantasy; your readers will take them literally. Or they may take them figuratively - but if so, they'll also take your… — Teresa Nielsen Hayden
The essence of drama is that man cannot walk away from the consequences of his own deeds. — Harold Hayes
In a good play, everyone is in the right. — Christian Friedrich Hebbel
Easy writing makes hard reading. — Ernest Hemingway
If a writer of prose knows enough about what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the… — Ernest Hemingway
Only a person with a Best Seller mind can write Best Sellers. — Aldous Huxley
To write fiction, one needs a whole series of inspirations about people in an actual environment, and then a whole lot of work on the… — Aldous Huxley
James Blish told me I had the worst case of "said bookism" (that is, using every word except said to indicate dialogue). He told me… — Anne McCaffrey
A critic knows more than the author he criticizes, or just as much, or at least somewhat less. — Henry Edward Manning
If you go too far in fantasy and break the string of logic, and become nonsensical, someone will surely remind you of your dereliction....Pound for… — Richard Matheson
You write that first draft really to see how it's going to come out. — James A. Michener
A man is a writer if all his words are strung in definite sentence sounds. — Marianne Moore
I have a theory of my own about what the art of the novel is, and how it came into being....It happens because the storyteller's… — Murasaki Shikibu
The reader has certain rights. He bought your story. Think of this as an implicit contract. He's entitled to be entertained, instructed, amused; maybe all… — Larry Niven
If you do not have an alert and curious interest in character and dramatic situation, if you have no visual imagination and are unable to… — Unknown Author
The framework of the artist's ideas is clearly only that which he is forever seeking for universality, and must be far wider than the framework… — Sean O Faolain
Fantasy doesn't have to be fantastic. American writers in particular find this much harder to grasp. You need to have your feet on the ground… — Terry Pratchett
I often think of a poem as a door that opens into a room where I want to go. — Minnie Bruce Pratt
The makers of the short story have rarely been good novelists. — V. S. Pritchett
Short stories can be rather stark and bare unless you put in the right details. Details make stories human, and the more human a story… — V. S. Pritchett
When you send off a short story, it sits on the editor's desk in the same pile with stories by the most famous and honored… — Daniel Quinn
Prune what is turgid, elevate what is commonplace, arrange what is disorderly, introduce rhythm where the language is harsh, modify where it is too absolute. — Quintilian
Write quickly and you will never write well; write well, and you will soon write quickly. — Quintilian
I know that if I have been working on one paragraph and I have written it three times, it goes in the bin. Unless it… — Robert Rankin
Really, in the end, the only thing that can make you a writer is the person that you are, the intensity of your feeling, the… — Unknown Author

Who Wrote These Writing Quotes

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