Today I bring you 30 great writing quotes to motivate/inspire you. You may have seen them before – especially if you have subscribed to the Daily Post. But here are them again. For those of you who haven’t seen them before…well, here they are:
On Writing Well
- “Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.” ~Anton Chekhov
- “As a writer, words are your paint. Use all the colors.” ~Rhys Alexander
- “Whether or not you write well, write bravely.” ~Bill Stout (ed. note: I don’t think these are mutually exclusive but I appreciate the sentiment)
- “Writing well means never having to say, ‘I guess you had to be there.’” ~Jef Mallett
- “The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say.” ~Anaïs Nin
- “Sometimes a flat-footed sentence is what serves, so you don’t get all writerly: ‘He opened the door.’ There, it’s open.” ~Amy Hempel
- “Don’t get it right, just get it written.” ~James Thurber
- “Write about what you know and care deeply about. When one puts one’s self on paper — that is what is called good writing.” ~Joel Chandler Harris
- “Good writers are those who keep the language efficient. That is to say, keep it accurate, keep it clear.” ~Ezra Pound
- “Start early and work hard. A writer’s apprenticeship usually involves writing a million words (which are then discarded) before he’s almost ready to begin. That takes a while.” ~David Eddings
On the Agony and Ecstasy of Writing
- “Revision is one of the true pleasures of writing. I love the flowers of afterthought.” ~Bernard Malamud
- “Writing is the only thing that, when I do it, I don’t feel I should be doing something else.” ~Gloria Steinem
- “Writing is the best way to talk without being interrupted.” ~Jules Renard
- “The wastebasket is a writer’s best friend.” ~Isaac Bashevis Singer
- “True ease in writing comes from art, not chance, as those who move easiest have learned to dance.” ~Alexander Pope
- “Writing is easy: All you do is sit staring at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead.” ~Gene Fowler
- “We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospection.” ~Anaïs Nin
- “The profession of book-writing makes horse racing seem like a solid, stable business.” ~John Steinbeck
- “I have been correcting the proofs of my poems. In the morning, after hard work, I took a comma out of one sentence…. In the afternoon I put it back again.” ~Oscar Wilde
- “I just sit at a typewriter and curse a bit.” ~P.G. Wodehouse
On The Lighter Side
- “Anybody can make history. Only a great man can write it.” ~Oscar Wilde
- “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
- “If you would not be forgotten as soon as you are dead, either write things worth reading or do things worth writing.” ~Benjamin Franklin
- “We writers dream of a future where actors are mostly computer generated and their performances can be adjusted, by us, on a laptop, alone.” ~Tina Fey
- “Anyone can become a writer. The trick is staying a writer.” ~Harlan Ellison
- “A synonym is a word you use when you can’t spell the other one.” ~Baltasar Gracián
- “Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia.” ~E. L. Doctorow
- “If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn’t brood. I’d type a little faster.” ~Isaac Asimov
- “I write when I’m inspired, and I see to it that I’m inspired to write at 9 o’clock every morning.” ~Peter De Vries
- “Wanting to meet an author because you like his work is like wanting to meet a duck because you like paté.” ~Margaret Atwood
So there they are. Do you like them, or hate them? Got any more writing quotes you would put up? Let me know!
