A writer writes not because he is educated but because he is driven by the need to communicate. Behind the need to communicate is the need to share. Behind the need to share is the need to be understood. The writer wants to be understood much more than he wants to be respected or praised or even loved. And that perhaps, is what makes him different from others.
—Leo Rosten (1908–97) Russian-born American Humorist, Teacher, Academic, Short Story Writer
The strokes of the pen need deliberation, as much as those of the sword need swiftness.
—Julia Ward Howe (1819–1910) American Feminist, Reformer, Writer
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, Editor, Writer, Teacher
The reason one writes isn’t the fact he wants to say something. He writes because he has something to say.
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) American Novelist
Writing is like getting married. One should never commit oneself until one is amazed at one’s luck.
—Iris Murdoch (1919–99) British Novelist, Playwright, Philosopher
Poetry is a deal of joy and pain and wonder, with a dash of the dictionary.
—Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931) Lebanese-born American Philosopher, Poet, Painter, Theologian, Sculptor
Writing is to descend like a miner to the depths of the mine with a lamp on your forehead, a light whose dubious brightness falsifies everything, whose wick is in permanent danger of explosion, whose blinking illumination in the coal dust exhausts and corrodes your eyes.
—Blaise Cendrars (1887–1961) Swiss Novelist, Poet, Essayist
As for my next book, I am going to hold myself from writing it till I have it impending in me: grown heavy in my mind like a ripe pear; pendant, gravid, asking to be cut or it will fall.
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English Novelist
They lard their lean books with the fat of others’ works.
—Robert Burton (1577–1640) English Scholar, Clergyman
Every drop of ink in my pen ran cold.
—Hugh Walpole (1884–1941) English Novelist, Short Story Writer, Dramatist
Writing is the only way to talk without being interrupted.
—Jules Renard (1864–1910) French Writer, Diarist
The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say.
—Anais Nin (1903–77) French-American Essayist
To write well consists of continuously making small erosions, wearing away grammar in its established form, current norms of language. It is an act of permanent rebellion and subversion against social environs.
—Jose Ortega y. Gasset (1883–1955) Spanish Critic, Journalist, Philosopher
Creative writers are always greater than the causes that they represent.
—E. M. Forster (1879–1970) English Novelist, Short Story Writer, Essayist
What things there are to write, if one could only write them! My mind is full of gleaming thought; gay moods and mysterious, moth-like meditations hover in my imagination, fanning their painted wings. But always the rarest, those streaked with azure and the deepest crimson, flutter away beyond my reach.
—Logan Pearsall Smith (1865–1946) American-British Essayist, Bibliophile
If you want to be a writer-stop talking about it and sit down and write!
—Jackie Collins (1937–2015) English Romance Novelist
There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.
—Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American Author, Journalist, Short Story Writer
I’m not a very good writer, but I’m an excellent rewriter.
—James A. Michener (1907–97) American Novelist, Short Story Writer, Historian
Every great writer is a writer of history, let him treat on what subjects he may.—He carries with him, for thousands of years, a portion of his times.
—Walter Savage Landor (1775–1864) English Writer, Poet
Let those who would write heroic poems make their life an heroic poem.
—John Milton (1608–74) English Poet, Civil Servant, Scholar, Debater
I make no complaint. I am a writer. I do not accept my condition; I will strive to change it; but I inhabit it, I am trying to learn from it.
—Salman Rushdie (b.1947) Indian-born British Novelist
Everyone seems to assume that the unscrupulous parts of journalism will be the frivolous or jocular parts. This is against all ethical experience. Jokes are generally honest. Complete solemnity is almost always dishonest. The writer of the snippet merely refers to a frivolous and fugitive fact in a frivolous and fugitive way. The writer of the leading article has to write about a fact he has known for 20 minutes as though he has studied it for 20 years.
—G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) English Journalist, Novelist, Essayist, Poet
One ought only to write when one leaves a piece of one’s own flesh in the inkpot, each time one dips one’s pen.
—Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) Russian Novelist
Words—so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them.
—Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–64) American Novelist, Short Story Writer
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
Metaphors have a way of holding the most truth in the least space.
—Orson Scott Card (b.1951) American Author
I do not like to write – I like to have written.
—Gloria Steinem (b.1934) American Feminist, Journalist, Social Activist, Political Activist
Writing and travel broaden your ass if not your mind and I like to write standing up.
—Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American Author, Journalist, Short Story Writer
You must find your own quiet center of life, and write from that to the world.
—Sarah Orne Jewett (1849–1909) American Children’s Books Writer, Novelist, Short Story Writer
The profession of book writing makes horse racing seem like a solid, stable business.
—John Steinbeck (1902–68) American Novelist, Short Story Writer, Journalist
Some American writers who have known each other for years have never met in the daytime or when both were sober.
—James Thurber
One reason writers write is out of revenge. Life hurts; certain ideas and experiences hurt; one wants to clarify, to set out illuminations, to replay the old bad scenes and get the Treppenworte said—the words one didn’t have the strength or ripeness to say when those words were necessary for one’s dignity or survival.
—Cynthia Ozick (b.1928) American Novelist, Short-story Writer, Essayist
I never know what I think about something until I read what I’ve written on it.
—William Faulkner (1897–1962) American Novelist
Most clear writing is a sign that there is no exploration going on. Clear prose indicates the absence of thought.
—Marshall Mcluhan (1911–80) Canadian Writer, Thinker, Educator
The maker of a sentence launches out into the infinite and builds a road into Chaos and old Night, and is followed by those who hear him with something of wild, creative delight.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
I can write better than anybody who can write faster, and I can write faster than anybody who can write better.
—A. J. Liebling (1904–63) American Journalist, Press Critic
The future author is one who discovers that language, the exploration and manipulation of the resources of language, will serve him in winning through to his way.
—Thornton Wilder (1897–1975) American Novelist, Playwright
I am a man, and alive…. For this reason I am a novelist. And being a novelist, I consider myself superior to the saint, the scientist, the philosopher, and the poet, who are all great masters of different bits of man alive, but never get the whole hog.
—D. H. Lawrence (1885–1930) English Novelist, Playwright, Poet, Essayist, Literary Critic
You must not suppose, because I am a man of letters, that I never tried to earn an honest living.
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright
Everything which I have created as a poet has had its origin in a frame of mind and a situation in life; I never wrote because I had, as they say, found a good subject.
—Henrik Ibsen (1828–1906) Norwegian Playwright
The trade of authorship is a violent, and indestructible obsession.
—George Sand (1804–76) French Novelist, Dramatist
If you’re going to write, don’t pretend to write down. It’s going to be the best you can do, and it’s the fact that it’s the best you can do that kills you.
—Dorothy Parker (1893–1967) American Humorist, Journalist
Although most of us know Vincent van Gogh in Arles and Paul Gauguin in Tahiti as if they were neighbors—somewhat disreputable but endlessly fascinating—none of us can name two French generals or department store owners of that period. I take enormous pride in considering myself an artist, one of the necessaries.
—James A. Michener (1907–97) American Novelist, Short Story Writer, Historian
True ease in writing comes from art, not chance, as those move easiest who have learned to dance. ‘Tis not enough no harshness gives offence. The sound must seem an echo to the sense.
—Alexander Pope (1688–1744) English Poet
No pen, no ink, no table, no room, no time, no quiet, no inclination.
—James Joyce (1882–1941) Irish Novelist, Poet
My own luck has been curious all my literary life; I could never tell a lie that anyone would doubt, nor a truth that anyone would believe.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
I love writing. I love the swirl and swing of words as they tangle with human emotions.
—James A. Michener (1907–97) American Novelist, Short Story Writer, Historian
All those writers who write about their childhood! Gentle God, if I wrote about mine you wouldn’t sit in the same room with me.
—Dorothy Parker (1893–1967) American Humorist, Journalist
Every writer is a narcissist. This does not mean that he is vain; it only means that he is hopelessly self-absorbed.
—Leo Rosten (1908–97) Russian-born American Humorist, Teacher, Academic, Short Story Writer
A good style should show no signs of effort. What is written should seem a happy accident.
—W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) British Novelist, Short-Story Writer, Playwright