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Writing Quotes

Writing Quotes

Last updated: September 23, 2024

412 Writing Quotes organized by Most Popular

“I feel like that will only change when the way people view writing on the internet period changes. ‘Sad Girl Twitter’ and Alt-Lit exist because they are types of writing that only exist on the internet and are only popular because of the internet. And for somebody like Jonathan Franzen who denies the internet as an art form—he’s going to view those people as shit heads that nobody cares about. That’s maybe because the internet is so new and because writing on the internet is so new, it’s really hard to change that viewpoint. Especially amongst older generations.”
— Mira Gonzalez, Mira Gonzalez on Being Labelled
Tagged: Writing, The internet, Twitter, Jonathan Franzen
“I encourage my students at times like these to get one page of anything written, three hundred words of memories or dreams or stream of consciousness on how much they hate writing — just for the hell of it, just to keep their fingers from becoming too arthritic, just because they have made a commitment to try to write three hundred words every day. Then, on bad days and weeks, let things go at that… Your unconscious can’t work when you are breathing down its neck. You’ll sit there going, ‘Are you done in there yet, are you done in there yet?’ But it is trying to tell you nicely, ‘Shut up and go away.'”
— Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
Tagged: Writer's Block, Advice, Writing, Art, Creativity, Encouragement
“The best way is always to stop when you are going good and when you know what will happen next. If you do that every day … you will never be stuck. Always stop while you are going good and don’t think about it or worry about it until you start to write the next day. That way your subconscious will work on it all the time. But if you think about it consciously or worry about it you will kill it and your brain will be tired before you start.”
— Ernest Hemingway, Hemingway on Coding
Tagged: Writer's Block, Advice, Writing, Art, Creativity, Stuck
“Over the years, I’ve found one rule. It is the only one I give on those occasions when I talk about writing. A simple rule. If you tell yourself you are going to be at your desk tomorrow, you are by that declaration asking your unconscious to prepare the material. You are, in effect, contracting to pick up such valuables at a given time. Count on me, you are saying to a few forces below: I will be there to write.”
— Norman Mailer, The Spooky Art: Some Thoughts on Writing
Tagged: Writer's Block, Advice, Writing, Art, Creativity, Values, Rules
“When I sit down to write a book, I do not say to myself, ‘I am going to produce a work of art.’ I write it because there is some lie that I want to expose, some fact to which I want to draw attention, and my initial concern is to get a hearing.”
— George Orwell, Why I Write
Tagged: Writer's Block, Creativity, Art, Writing, Books, Exposure, Attention
“I really would like to stop working forever–never work again, never do anything like the kind of work I’m doing now–and do nothing but write poetry and have leisure to spend the day outdoors and go to museums and see friends. And I’d like to keep living with someone — maybe even a man — and explore relationships that way. And cultivate my perceptions, cultivate the visionary thing in me. Just a literary and quiet city-hermit existence.”
— Allen Ginsberg, Allen Ginsberg and his Psychiatrist
Tagged: Work, Leisure, Writing, Poetry, Explore, Cultivate What You Love, hermit, Existence
“There was an intimacy in writing that was somehow absent from personal interactions.”
— Sarah Lotz, Day Four: A Novel
Tagged: Writing, Intimacy, writer
“The love of literature, of language, of the mystery of the mind and heart showing themselves in the minute, strange, and unexpected combinations of letters and words, in the blackest and coldest print--the love which he had hidden as if it were illicit and dangerous, he began to display, tentatively at first, and then boldly, and then proudly.”
— John Edward Williams, Stoner
Tagged: Love Of Writing, writer, Writing, Love Of Literature, Literature, Language, My Favorites
“It was an act of devotion. A little like writing or loving someone — it doesn’t always feel worthwhile, but not giving up somehow creates unexpected meaning over time.”
— Miranda July, It Chooses You
Tagged: Meaning, Devotion, Love, Writing, Not Giving Up
“Of this there can be no question — creative work requires a loyalty as complete as the loyalty of water to the force of gravity. A person trudging through the wilderness of creation who does not know this — who does not swallow this — is lost. He who does not crave that roofless place eternity should stay at home. Such a person is perfectly worthy, and useful, and even beautiful, but is not an artist. Such a person had better live with timely ambitions and finished work formed for the sparkle of the moment only. Such a person had better go off and fly an airplane.”
— Mary Oliver, Upstream
Tagged: Creation, Writing, How to be a writer
“It is six A.M., and I am working. I am absentminded, reckless, heedless of social obligations, etc. It is as it must be. The tire goes flat, the tooth falls out, there will be a hundred meals without mustard. The poem gets written. I have wrestled with the angel and I am stained with light and I have no shame. Neither do I have guilt. My responsibility is not to the ordinary, or the timely. It does not include mustard, or teeth. It does not extend to the lost button, or the beans in the pot. My loyalty is to the inner vision, whenever and howsoever it may arrive. If I have a meeting with you at three o’clock, rejoice if I am late. Rejoice even more if I do not arrive at all.

There is no other way work of artistic worth can be done. And the occasional success, to the striver, is worth everything. The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave to it neither power nor time.”
— Mary Oliver, Upstream
Tagged: Creation, Writing, How to be a writer
“We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for. To quote from Whitman, 'O me! O life!... of the questions of these recurring; of the endless trains of the faithless... of cities filled with the foolish; what good amid these, O me, O life?' Answer. That you are here - that life exists, and identity; that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. That the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?”
— John Keating, Dead Poets Society
Tagged: Poetry, beauty, Writing, Verse, Life
“I sometimes look at this typewriter and wonder when it's going to run out of good words. I don't want that to happen.”
— Stephen King, The Body
Tagged: writer, Writing, Words
“He was, of course, a piece of the sky. His eyes said so. This is not a fact; this is the other part of knowing something, when there is no proof, but neither is there any way toward disbelief. Imagine lifting the lid from a jar and finding it filled not with darkness but with light. Bird was like that. Startling, elegant, alive.”
— Mary Oliver, Upstream
Tagged: Writing, Nature, Why we believe what we believe
“To me, being a beauty editor was better than being president of the United States.”
— Cat Marnell, How to Murder Your Life: A Memoir
Tagged: Writers, Writing, magazines, Career
“I'm often asked, 'Where do you get your ideas?' This happens to anyone who is willing to stand in front of an audience and talk about his or her work. The short answer is: everywhere. It's like asking 'Where do you find the air you breathe?' Ideas are all around you.”
— Twyla Tharp, The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life
Tagged: creating, Creation, Writing, How to be a writer
“I don’t think writer’s block is what people think it is. When I feel ‘stuck’ or apathetic about what I’m working on, it almost always means I shouldn’t be doing it. The problem is either that I don’t have a clear idea of what I want to say, or I’m trying to write it in a way that is too far removed from how I would naturally speak or think.”
— Brianna Wiest
Tagged: How to be a writer, Writing
“The most heartbreaking thing about it is: the better you got, the harder you have to work–because your standards will rise with your ability. I mentioned 'work'–it's the wrong word: because if you're serious, the whole creative process is attended with pleasure in a form which very few people ever know. Putting two words together in a sequence that pleases you, really pleases you, brings a satisfaction which must be kin to what a businessman feels when he manages a sharp transaction...but on a higher plane...those two words which the writer set together have produced an effect will will never die as long as men can read with understanding.”
— Shelby Foote, The Correspondence of Shelby Foote & Walker Percy
Tagged: Life, Writing
“When a writer doesn't write it doesn't mean they don't have time, for they can write anywhere and anytime, on tissues or on phone Notes, emblazon words on a passing cloud. No, it can only mean one thing: they can't handle their own thoughts, can't face their own realities, and so they refuse to let their anxieties take shape in tangible words and sentences. Because to write is to sift through and process emotions, to try and understand the workings of their brains, to find the black and white and the grey, and to acknowledge rights and admit mistakes.”
— Rachel Jean Matela, via Facebook
Tagged: writer, Writing, Writer's Block, Anxiety
“We had to be creative growing up. Without siblings around, we were forced to entertain ourselves. Whether it was through drawing, writing, or building something epic with Legos, our minds were always turning as kids, and it hasn’t stopped now that we’re older.”
— Jay Miletsky, 11 Things That Only Only Children Understand (and Want You to Know)
Tagged: only children, Creativity, Writing, drawing
“He went on and on about how weird that was. He pointed out that people were really starting to know my name and asked me if  I 'could believe it.' 'Yes.' I said. I had worked for over a decade to get to this moment. I hadn't just dropped my script in someone's lap on a train. 'Can you?' I asked him.”
— Amy Poehler, Yes Please
Tagged: Writing, How to be a writer
“Practice will never make you perfect. Why should it? What fun would that be?”
— Stephen King, On Writing
Tagged: Writing, Zen
“If you can do it for joy, you can do it forever.”
— Stephen King, On Writing
Tagged: Writing, Career, How to be a writer
“Words were secret doorways and I held all the keys.”
— Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner
Tagged: Reading Quotes, Writing, Literature Quotes
“I think representation is exceedingly important. I think women of colour in the writing world are an absolute need.”
— Nikita Gill, Interview: Nikita Gill on Poetry, Instagram and Writing as a Woman of Color
Tagged: Poetry, Writing, Writing As A Movement, Writing Heals, Language Can Hurt and Heal, Language Can Create New Worlds, POC Poetry, Women Of Color, Women of Color Writers, Women of Color Poets, Representation, The Stories That Don't Get Told, Marginalized Voices
“Throughout my 20s and most of my 30s, I was convinced I was never going to make it as a writer.”
— Roxane Gay, Opinion | Ask Roxane: Is It Too Late to Follow My Dreams?
Tagged: Writing, How to be a writer, Artists
“Writing is an act of paying attention. Of moving towards the essential which lies, hidden, behind the costumes, baubles & doodads of survival. Remove all the noise and explore what you are left with: what is your self busy hiding from your self?”
— Quiara Alegría Hudes
Tagged: Writing, Writing as an Expression, writing and expressing, writing is a craft, writing truth
“This sentence has five words. Here are five more words. Five-word sentences are fine. But several together become monotonous. Listen to what is happening. The writing is getting boring. The sound of it drones. It’s like a stuck record. The ear demands some variety. 

Now listen. I vary the sentence length, and I create music. Music. The writing sings. It has a pleasant rhythm, a lilt, a harmony. I use short sentences. And I use sentences of medium length. And sometimes, when I am sure the reader is rested, I will engage him with a sentence of considerable length, a sentence that burns with energy and builds with all the impetus of a crescendo, the roll of the drums, the crash of the cymbals-sounds that say listen to this, it is important. 

So write with a combination of short, medium, and long sentences. Create a sound that pleases the reader’s ear. Don’t just write words. Write music.”
— Gary Provost, 100 Ways To Improve Your Writing
Tagged: Philosophy, How To Think, Writing
“I need to write about love. I need to think and think and write about love-otherwise, my soul won’t survive.”
— Paulo Coelho, Eleven Minutes
Tagged: Love, Writing
“On February 8, 2009, at 12:30am, Chris Brown 
 beat Rihanna’s face into a landscape of craters 
 and bruises. This is the architecture of violence. 
 Later, Chris Brown described their relationship 
 as being similar to Romeo and Juliet’s. 

In 2013, David O. Russell groped 
his niece’s breasts and claimed 
she had flirted with him first. 

In 1965, Sean Connery told Playboy 
there was nothing wrong with beating a woman. 
That “bloody-minded,” “hysterical,” “bitch” 
women should be hit, should be slapped. 

In 2014, Julia Sonenshein wrote an article 
titled “10 Violent Men Who Are Always Forgiven 
Because Everyone Loves Their Art.” 


They say it’s a myth that mother rabbits
abandon their young in their nests 
after their young have been handled 
by humans. That the scent of humans 
will drive the mother away. 
They say it’s a myth. 
And that the young, no matter how battered 
or bruised, will still be accepted 
by their caregivers. 


But in the human world, the rules change. 
After the rape, most of my rapist’s friends 
abandoned me. One claimed I only wanted 
to profit off my art. 


No one considered that blood 
does not make good paint. 
That trauma is an electric chair 
that singes anyone it can reach. 
It wasn’t my art, remember? 
It was his. 
And he was always forgiven 
because they loved his art.”
— Meggie Royer, It’s Time to Stop Forgiving Our Male Heroes
Tagged: Poetry, Writing, Sexual Assault, Trigger Warning, Rape Culture, Trauma
“I’m never not working on material. Every second of my existence, I am thinking, ‘Can I do something with that?'”
— No Results Found
Tagged: Writing, How to be a writer, Transparency
“if it doesn't come bursting out of you 
in spite of everything, 
don't do it.”
— Charles Bukowski, So You Want To Be A Writer
Tagged: Writing, Passion, Compulsion
“Do not tell people how to live their lives. Just tell them stories and they will figure out how those stories apply to them.”
— Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture
Tagged: Stories, Writing, Creativity, Self-Expression
“These visions, these auditions, this process of driving words from one end of the universe to the other, it is delirium.”
— Gilles Deleuze, Essays Critical and Clinical
Tagged: Delirium, Words Fail, Writing
“The alphabet (and its extension into typography) made possible the spread of the power that is knowledge, and shattered the bonds of tribal man, thus exploding him into an agglomeration of individuals. Electric writing and speed pour upon him, instantaneously and continuously, the concerns of all other men. He becomes tribal once more. The human family becomes one tribe again.”
— Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man
Tagged: Fragmentation, Tribalism, Writing, Alphabet
“All you have to do is write one true sentence.”
— Ernest Hemingway, Complete Poems
Tagged: Writing, Finding The Right Words
“Although letters seem to facilitate communication and proximity, they produce instead a distance in which writers find the chance to become writers.”
— Vincent Kaufmann, Post Scripts: The Writer's Workshop
Tagged: Letters, Writing, This Distance, Communication, Human Connection
“Fiction can remind us — and because of the blood-sport nature of politics, we constantly need reminding — that the players in politics are first human beings.”
— John Williams, Adichie on Mrs. Trump
Tagged: fiction, Writing, Writers, Politics, Election, America, Trump
“as a writer, if someone falls in love with my work, i know they have fallen in love with my mind. having no idea what my face looks like, they chose my mind. art may be the only space a woman can be whole without being seen.”
— Nayyirah Waheed, via Tumblr
Tagged: Writing, Being A Writer, Female Writer, My Favorites, Being a woman, On Writing As A Female, feminism, Art
“When it's 3am and you can't sleep, open your window or step outside your house. Feel the crisp, cold air on your skin. Take a deep breath and watch as you create clouds when you breathe out. Look at the dark blue sky that sits above your head and marvel at how beautiful it is. Try to find the moon and the stars that guard the night sky. Whisper all your uncertainties out into the universe, it's okay if you let the stars carry the weight of your worries for a while. 

When it's 3am and you can't sleep, make a cup of tea, grab a pen and paper and write all the things you wish you could say in the form of a letter and address them to the people you wish you had the courage to tell. When you're done, seal them in an envelope and keep them in the drawer of your bedside table. Maybe one day you'll show them the words you wrote, but for now, it's out in the world and that's all that matters. When you start to shiver, step back inside. When your hand starts to cramp, stop writing. When you crawl back in bed and try to sleep, I hope you feel a little lighter. ”
— Unknown, via Tumblr
Tagged: When It's 3am, 3am Thoughts, Writing, Free Yourself, Let It All Out, Writing Fluidly, Power of Words, My Favorites
“Poetry writing is an immensely personal experience. Many people don't realize a poem is an extension of the poet. Such is the attachment that reading a poem may be interpreted as voyeuristic. Even if a poet practices to be published, for money, or does so in private - we do so for ourselves. We write for ourselves, we publish for ourselves. Famous or not, a poet is a person. And every person has a different reality, and their art is shaped by that reality. So if you belittle anyone when you don't like their poetry because you prefer Plath, and you don't like Plath because you prefer Shakespeare, and you don't like Shakespeare because you prefer Bukowski, or Lang Leav, or Andrea Gibson, or Anonymous - that's okay. None of it was written for you in the first place.”
— Sade Andria Zabala, Thought Of The Day
Tagged: Poetry, Art, Literature, writer, Writing
“Dreams come in all different shapes, and believe it or not giving up is no way to achieve them. Your dream may be different to mine, or his, hers, the rest of the world, or even your families but it is just as attainable as any. Keep working, keep striving and keep challenging yourself to achieve great things and I promise good will come your way.”
— Amy Kennedy, Dreams
Tagged: Dreams, differences, Self-improvement, Self-Worth, Writing, expression, Work Hard, Stay Humble
“I honestly had no fucking clue what I was doing, I just made it up as I went along.”
— Amy Kaufman, 'There's Something They Want to Hide': A Conversation With Bachelor Nation Author Amy Kaufman
Tagged: Writing, How to be a writer, Books, How to write a book
“I have a certain niche that I work in. A lot of it has to be about alienation. Being on the outside of things. That tends to be where I feel more comfortable as a writer.”
— David Bowie, David Bowie: The Last Five Years
Tagged: Niche, Writing, Alienation
“Whatever gets the job done and doesn't make you hate yourself or self-destruct is the right way to do it. Whenever I give advice here, I'm speaking to the writer I was in 2009.”
— Delilah S. Dawson
Tagged: Writing, Writing Advice, Writing Tips
“A novel has roughly six stages of 'done.'
1: 'I know how it ends, but not how to do it.'
2: 'I know how to do it, but haven't written it.'
3: 'I wrote it, but it sucks.'
4: 'I wrote it again, but it needs work.'
5: 'I finished the work, but I'm still not happy.'
6: 'good enough'”
— Sam Sykes
Tagged: Writing, writing process, writing a novel, Writing Consciously, writing truth
“Please don’t make the mistake of thinking the arts and sciences are at odds with one another. That is a recent, stupid, and damaging idea. You don’t have to be unscientific to make beautiful art, to write beautiful things.”
— Tim Minchin
Tagged: Arts, Sciences, idea, Making Art, Writing
“You only write what you know about.”
— Benny Hill, BENNY HILL: Interview Part 1 : 1974 Sydney Australia
Tagged: Writing
“I'm increasingly asked about sensitivity readers and my personal belief is that they *can* be a good tool, but they are NOT The Answer.

The Answer is for the author to consult experts, do the research, put in the time, and understand why they're writing what they're writing. 

Writing, especially about sensitive topics and marginalized people, is not a black & white thing. There is no guarantee of right or wrong. Whether the Author does a good job or not is dependent on their skill, which is a combination of craft, experience, editorial work. And frankly many people will disagree on whether the Author did a good job. This is to be expected. It's ok to disagree. 

I still believe in the writer's right to write whatever they want. I also believe in the reader's right to not read it.”
— Milanda Lo, via twitter.com
Tagged: Writing, sensitivity readers, Authors, writing about sensitive topics
“Read more than you write.”
— Clint Smith, via twitter.com
Tagged: Reading, Writing, Listen, educate yourself, be educated