Writing Quotes

18562 Writing quotes by 6643 unique authors

Write from the soul, not from some notion what you think the marketplace wants. The market is fickle; the soul is eternal. — Jeffrey Carver
Writing is a tool of transformation and can shine the light on the inside, dispelling darkness, taking us through external layers, bringing us closer to… — Unknown Author
I don't want to take up literature in a money-making spirit, or be very anxious about making large profits, but selling it at a loss… — Lewis Carroll
I think a little menace is fine to have in a story. For one thing, it's good for the circulation. — Raymond Carver
Love interest nearly always weakens a mystery because it introduces a type of suspense that is antagonistic to the detective's struggle to solve a problem. — Raymond Chandler
I have made three rules of writing for myself that are absolutes: Never take advice. Never show or discuss work in progress. Never answer a… — Raymond Chandler
You could compile the worst book in the world entirely out of selected passages from the best writers in the world. — Gilbert K. Chesterton
General rules have been legislated into being by past masters. — John Ciardi
There is a special sadness in achievement, in the knowledge that a long-desired goal has been attained at last, and that life must now be… — Arthur C. Clarke
The good writer, the great writer, has what I have called the three S's: the power to see, to sense, and to say. That is,… — Lawrence Clark Powell
If writers were good businessmen, they'd have too much sense to be writers. — Irvin S. Cobb
As regards plot I find real life no help at all. Real life seems to have no plots. And as I think a plot desirable… — Ivy Compton-Burnett
I'm very proud of my flops, as much as of my successes. — Francis Ford Coppola
Reading is the most rewarding form of exile and the most necessary discipline for novelists who burn with the ambition to get better. — Pat Conroy
To be creative, you have to be wrong most of the time. — Unknown Author
Good writing is essentially rewriting. — Roald Dahl
Writing is very different to having your photo taken. You are exposing yourself more, not physically but emotionally. — Sophie Dahl
I think of an author as somebody who goes into the marketplace and puts down his rug and says, "I will tell you a story,"… — Robertson Davies
There is absolutely no point in sitting down to write a book unless you feel that you must write that book, or else go mad,… — Robertson Davies
Writing isn't hard - no harder than ditch digging. — Patrick Dennis
Writing is a cop-out. An excuse to live perpetually in fantasy land, where you can create, direct and watch the products of your own head.… — Monica Dickens
To shift the structure of a sentence alters the meaning of that sentence, as definitely and inflexibly as the position of a camera alters the… — Joan Didion
The act of composition is a series of discoveries. — E L Doctorow
The purpose of writing is to make your mother and father drop dead with shame. — J P Donleavy
The defining function of the artist is to cherish consciousness. — Max Eastman

Who Wrote These Writing Quotes

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