Give me a condor’s quill! Give me Vesuvius crater for an inkstand!
—Herman Melville (1819–91) American Novelist, Short Story Writer, Essayist, Poet
Practically everybody in New York has half a mind to write a book, and does.
—Groucho Marx (1890–1977) American Actor, Comedian, Singer
As in political, so in literary action, a man wins friends for himself mostly by the passion of his prejudices.
—Joseph Conrad (1857–1924) Polish-born British Novelist
One must be drenched in words, literally soaked in them, to have the right ones form themselves into the proper pattern at the right moment.
—Hart Crane (1899–1932) American Poet
What an occupation! To sit and flay your fellow men and then offer their skins for sale and expect them to buy them.
—August Strindberg (1849–1912) Swedish Playwright, Novelist, Essayist
The only way out is the way through, just as you cannot escape from death except by dying. Being unable to write, you must examine in writing this being unable, which becomes for the present—henceforth?—the subject to which you are condemned.
—Howard Nemerov (1920–91) American Poet, Novelist, Playwright
The hard necessity of bringing the judge on the bench down into the dock has been the peculiar responsibility of the writer in all ages of man.
—Nelson Algren (1909–81) American Writer, Novelist
Writing is hard work and bad for the health.
—E. B. White (1985–99) American Essayist, Humorist
With 60 staring me in the face, I have developed inflammation of the sentence structure and a definite hardening of the paragraphs.
—James Thurber
The difficulty of literature is not to write, but to write what you mean; not to affect your reader, but to affect him precisely as you wish.
—Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–94) Scottish Novelist
It is excellent discipline for an author to feel that he must say all that he has to say in the fewest possible words, or his readers is sure to skip them.
—John Ruskin (1819–1900) English Writer, Art Critic
A writer never reads his work. For him, it is the unreadable, a secret, and he cannot remain face to face with it. A secret, because he is separated from it.
—Maurice Blanchot (1907–2003) French Novelist, Critic
You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.
—Ray Bradbury (b.1920) American Novelist, Short Story Writer
I hold any writer sufficiently justified who is himself in love with his theme.
—Henry James (1843–1916) American-born British Novelist, Writer
Every creator painfully experiences the chasm between his inner vision and its ultimate expression. The chasm is never completely bridged. We all have the conviction, perhaps illusory, that we have much more to say than appears on the paper.
—Isaac Bashevis Singer (1902–91) Polish-born American Writer, Novelist, Short Story Writer
The aim, if reached or not, makes great the life: try to be Shakespeare, leave the rest to fate!
—Robert Browning (1812–89) English Poet
An author ought to write for the youth of his own generation, the critics of the next, and the school-masters of ever afterward.
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) American Novelist
The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter—’tis the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
Real writers-that is, capital W Writers-rarely make much money. Their biggest reward is the occasional reader’s response…. Commentators-in-print voicing big fat opinions-you might call us small w writers-get considerably more feedback than Writers. The letters I personally find most flattering are not the very rare ones that speak well of my editorials, but the occasional reader who wants to know who writes them. I always happily assume the letter-writers is implying that the editorials are so good that I couldn’t have written them myself.
—Malcolm S. Forbes (1919–1990) American Publisher, Businessperson
Writing is utter solitude, the descent into the cold abyss of oneself.
—Franz Kafka (1883–1924) Austrian Novelist, Short Story Writer
What a good thing Adam had. When he said a good thing, he knew nobody had said it before.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
I learned that you should feel when writing, not like Lord Byron on a mountain top, but like child stringing beads in kindergarten, – happy, absorbed and quietly putting one bead on after another.
—Brenda Ueland (1891–1985) American Journalist Memoirist
What would there be in a story of happiness? Only what prepares it, only what destroys it can be told.
—Andre Gide (1869–1951) French Novelist
Good authors, too, who once knew better words now only use four-letter words writing prose… anything goes.
—Cole Porter (1892–1964) American Composer, Lyricist
I am always at a loss at how much to believe of my own stories.
—Washington Irving (1783–1859) American Essayist, Biographer, Historian
Substitute “damn” every time you’re inclined to write “very;” your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
The art of writing is the art of applying the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair.
—Mary Heaton Vorse (1874–1966) American Labor Activist
How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher
Don’t use words too big for the subject. Don’t say “infinitely” when you mean “very”; otherwise you’ll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite.
—C. S. Lewis (1898–1963) Irish-British Academic, Author, Literary Scholar
Writing, in any sense that matters, cannot be taught. It can only be learned by each separate one of us in his own way, by the use of his own powers of imagination and perception, the ability to learn the lessons he has set for himself.
—Katherine Anne Porter (1890–1980) American Short-Story Writer, Novelist
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