Be prepared Quote by Stanley Ellin

Becoming a writer is not a 'career decision' like becoming a doctor or a policeman. You don't choose it so much as get chosen,…

— Paul Auster

You can't want to be a writer. You have to be one.

— Paul Theroux

You have to live a life to become a writer.

— Joel Surnow

Writing is hard work. But if you want to become a writer you will become one. Nothing will stop you.

— Dorothy Day

You need a certain amount of nerve to be a writer.

— Margaret Atwood

I've had a few jobs, but if you want to be a writer, you're better off getting a job that doesn't require that you…

— John Cooper Clarke

It's easy, after all, not to be a writer. Most people aren't writers, and very little harm comes to them.

— Julian Barnes

You become a writer because you need to become a writer - nothing else.

— Grace Paley

The best way to become a writer is to go off and write.

— Ernest Hemingway

You have to give up a great deal of life, your personal life, to be a writer.

— Doris Lessing

Perhaps it would be better not to be a writer, but if you must, then write.

— J. B. Priestley

If you want to be a writer, you write. Everybody wants to get published. You gotta play your long game.

— Paul Harding