Category Archives: Quotes about Writing

The impulse to write things down is a peculiarly compulsive one, inexplicable to those who do not share it, useful only accidentally, only secondarily, in the way that any compulsion tries to justify itself. I suppose that it begins or does not begin in the cradle. As it happens, I am still committed to theContinue reading “Great Writing Quotes by Author Joan Didion”

I’ve always associated the moment of writing with a moment of lift, of joy, of unexpected reward. The gift of writing is to be self-forgetful… to get a surge of inner life or inner supply or unexpected sense of empowerment, to be afloat, to be out of yourself. The thing about writing is that ifContinue reading “Great Writing Quotes by Author Seamus Heaney”

It’s one of the most liberating things I experience in writing – letting yourself get rid of a gesture or character or plot point that always nagged, even if you couldn’t admit to yourself that it did. Whenever I’ve been stuck on a project, it’s always brought me solace to the return to books thatContinue reading “Great Writing Quotes by Author Leslie Jamison”

During the act of writing I have told myself something that I didn’t know I knew. Much of the activity we think of as writing is, actually, getting ready to write. I work continuously within the shadow of failure. For every novel that makes it to my publisher’s desk, there are at least five orContinue reading “Great Writing Quotes by Author Gail Godwin”

There’s nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein. Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader, not the fact that it’s raining, but the feeling of being rained upon. The novelist is like the conductor of an orchestra, his back to the audience, hisContinue reading “Great Writing Quotes by Author Sol Stein”

Writing, at its best and truest, can offer solace and salvation for both readers and writers. Just write and love what you’re writing. And if you’re not loving what you’re writing, take a look at why and fix that. If people cannot be flawed in fiction there’s no place left for us to be human.Continue reading “Great Writing Quotes by Author Roxane Gay”

Don’t forget – no one else sees the world the way you do, so no one else can tell the stories that you have to tell. The thing to remember when you’re writing is, it’s not whether or not what you put on paper is true. It’s whether it wakes a truth in your reader.Continue reading “Great Writing Quotes by Author Charles de Lint”

Exercise the writing muscle every day, even if it is only a letter, notes, a title list, a character sketch, a journal entry. Writers are like dancers, like athletes. Without that exercise, the muscles seize up. Just write. If you have to make a choice, if you say, ‘Oh well, I’m going to put theContinue reading “Great Writing Quotes by Author Jane Yolen”

Stories have to be told or they die, and when they die, we can’t remember who we are or why we’re here. I wrote about the raw, unsettled feelings coursing through me, the need to divest and relocate, the urge to radically simplify and distill life into a new, unknown meaning. I’ve always been aContinue reading “Great Writing Quotes by Author Sue Monk Kidd”

You may tell a tale that takes up residence in someone’s soul, becomes their blood and self and purpose. That tale will move them and drive them and who knows that they might do because of it, because of your words. That is your role, your gift. I’m not a coffee shop writer because IContinue reading “Great Writing Quotes by Author Erin Morgenstern”