quotations about writing
I can't understand why a person will take a year or two to write a novel when he can easily buy one for a few dollars.
FRED ALLEN
attributed, Books: Their History, Art, Power, Glory, Infamy and Suffering According to Their Creators, Friends and Enemies
I hate writing, I love having written.
DOROTHY PARKER
attributed, Rhymes with Vain
If I write novels in a country in which most citizens are illiterate, who then is my community?
CHINUA ACHEBE
Hopes and Impediments: Selected Essays
Some people talk to themselves, and some people write, and somehow society has decided that one gets committed and one gets a paycheck.
BOB LONSBERRY
official website
Nothing can destroy the good writer. The only thing that can alter the good writer is death. Good ones don't have time to bother with success or getting rich.
WILLIAM FAULKNER
The Paris Review, spring 1956
A writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.
THOMAS MANN
Essays of Three Decades
At the age of fourteen I discovered writing as an escape from a world of reality in which I felt acutely uncomfortable.
TENNESSEE WILLIAMS
foreword, Sweet Bird of Youth
If you don't have the time to read, you don't have the time or the tools to write.
STEPHEN KING
On Writing
Writers kid themselves -- about themselves and other people. Take the talk about writing methods. Writing is just work -- there's no secret. If you dictate or use a pen or type or write with your toes -- it's still just work.
SINCLAIR LEWIS
attributed, Just Open a Vein: A Book of Quotes for Writers
I write from a thorough conviction that it is the duty of me, and with the belief that, after every drawback and shortcoming, I do my best, all things considered--that is for me, and, so being, the not being listened to by one human creature would, I hope, in nowise affect me.
ROBERT BROWNING
letter to Elizabeth Barrett, February 11, 1845
I turn sentences around. That's my life. I write a sentence and then I turn it around. Then I look at it and turn it around again.
PHILIP ROTH
Ghost Writer
First forget inspiration. Habit is more dependable. Habit will sustain you whether you're inspired or not. Habit will help you finish and polish your stories. Inspiration won't. Habit is persistence in practice.
OCTAVIA E. BUTLER
"Furor Scribendi", Bloodchild and Other Stories
I've gotten a little superstitious about listening to music when I write. Once a story is going somewhere, I keep listening to the same music whenever I work on that story. It seems to help me keep in voice, and alternatively, if I need to make some kind of dramatic shift, I'll go and put on something different to shake myself awake.
KELLY LINK
"Words by Flashlight", Sybil's Garage, June 7, 2006
I didn't do anything as active as deciding that I wanted to be a writer. For one thing, I didn't feel like I was the final authority on whether or not I was anything like a writer. (I'm a timid soul.) I just kept writing stories, because becoming a veterinarian seemed as if it involved too much dissection.
KELLY LINK
"Words by Flashlight", Sybil's Garage, June 7, 2006
Writing is like hunting. There are brutally cold afternoons with nothing in sight, only the wind and your breaking heart. Then the moment when you bag something big.... This is a trophy brought back from the further realm, the kingdom of perpetual glistening night where we know ourselves absolutely. This one goes on the wall.
KATE BRAVERMAN
attributed, From Book to Bestseller
You must write according to your feelings, be sure those feelings are true, and let everything else go hang.
JULIAN BARNES
Flaubert's Parrot
A good writer can watch a cat pad across the street and know what it is to be pounced upon by a Bengal tiger.
JOHN LE CARRÉ
attributed, The Twilight and Other Zones
Learn to write well, or not to write at all.
JOHN DRYDEN
Essay on Satire
As things stand now, I am going to be a writer. I'm not sure that I'm going to be a good one or even a self-supporting one, but until the dark thumb of fate presses me to the dust and says "you are nothing," I will be a writer.
HUNTER S. THOMPSON
Gonzo
Everywhere I go I'm asked if I think the university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them. There's many a best-seller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.
FLANNERY O'CONNOR
attributed, The Book of Poisonous Quotes