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Writing quotes

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“Paper has more patience than people.” Anne Frank, “The Diary of a Young Girl” - 1947

“There are books of which the backs and covers are by far the best parts.” Charles Dickens, “Oliver Twist” - 1838

“Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.” Francis Bacon, “The Essays of Francis Bacon” - 1597

“You do not immortalize the lost by writing about them. Language buries, but does not resurrect.” John Green, “The Fault in Our Stars” - 2012

“To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme.” Herman Melville, “Moby-Dick” - 1851

“I may be poor at reading and writing, but when it comes to love, compassion, and other feelings of the heart, I am rich.” Muhammad Ali, “The Soul of a Butterfly” - 2004

“Words can be like X-rays, if you use them properly—they'll go through anything. You read and you're pierced.” Aldous Huxley, “Brave New World” - 1932

“Certainly the Art of Writing is the most miraculous of all things man has devised.” Thomas Carlyle, “On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and The Heroic in History” - 1841

“Lovers who love truly do not write down their happiness.” Anatole France, “The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard” - 1881

“You'll never be a writer if you hide from reality.” Charles Bukowski, “Ham on Rye” - 1982

“It just happens to be the way I'm made. I have to write things down to feel I fully comprehend them.” Haruki Murakami, “Norwegian Wood” - 1987

“Writing is magic, as much the water of life as any other creative art. The water is free. So drink. Drink and be filled up.” Stephen King, “On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft” - 2000

“Writing fiction, especially a long work of fiction, can be a difficult, lonely job; it’s like crossing the Atlantic Ocean in a bathtub. There’s plenty of opportunity for self-doubt.” Stephen King, “On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft” - 2000

“The only way you can write the truth is to assume that what you set down will never be read.” Margaret Atwood, “The Blind Assassin” - 2000

“Writing is good, thinking is better.” Hermann Hesse, “Siddhartha” - 1922

“The rest of it—and perhaps the best of it—is a permission slip: you can, you should, and if you’re brave enough to start, you will.” Stephen King, “On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft” - 2000

“If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.” Stephen King, “On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft” - 2000

“I am too fond of reading books to care to write them” Oscar Wilde, “The Picture of Dorian Gray” - 1890

“There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.” Oscar Wilde, “The Picture of Dorian Gray” - 1890

“If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.” Stephen King, “On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft” - 2000

“write with the door closed, rewrite with the door open.” Stephen King, “On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft” - 2000

“Writing is not life, but I think that sometimes it can be a way back to life.” Stephen King, “On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft” - 2000

“I'm not a drug salesman. I'm a writer.” Kurt Vonnegut, “Cat's Cradle” - 1963

“If I knew words enough I could write you the longest love-letter in the world—and never get tired.” F. Scott Fitzgerald, “Flappers and Philosophers” - 1920

“Description begins in the writer’s imagination, but should finish in the reader’s.” Stephen King, “On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft” - 2000

“I’m one of those people who doesn’t really know what he thinks until he writes it down” Stephen King, “11/22/63” - 2011

“Writing is a lonely job. Having someone who believes in you makes a lot of difference. They don’t have to make speeches. Just believing is usually enough.” Stephen King, “On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft” - 2000

“Writing is seduction. Good talk is part of seduction. If not so, why do so many couples who start the evening at dinner wind up in bed?” Stephen King, “On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft” - 2000

“Let there be gall enough in thy ink; though thou write with a goose-pen, no matter.” William Shakespeare, “Twelfth Night” - 1623

“A person who can write a long letter with ease, cannot write ill.” Jane Austen, “Pride and Prejudice” - 28 January 1813

“Devise, wit; write, pen; for I am for whole volumes in folio.” William Shakespeare, “Love's Labour's Lost” - 1598

“When a man writes on a wall, his instinct leads him to write about the level of his own eyes.” Arthur Conan Doyle, “A Study in Scarlet” - 1887

“She's brim full of poetry—actualized poetry, if I may use the expression. She LIVES what paper-poets only write...” Thomas Hardy, “Tess of the d'Urbervilles” - 1891

“The difference is slight, to the influence of an author, whether he is read by five hundred readers, or by five hundred thousand; if he can select the five hundred, he reaches the five hundred thousand.” Henry Adams, “The Education of Henry Adams” - 1906

“I only knew what was in my mind, and I wished to express it clearly, so that there could be no mistaking it.” Ulysses S. Grant, “Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant” - 1885

“Of all that is written, I love only what a person hath written with his blood. Write with blood, and thou wilt find that blood is spirit.” Friedrich Nietzsche, “Thus Spoke Zarathustra” - 1891

“The reason that fiction is more interesting than any other form of literature to those of us who like to study people is that in fiction the author can really tell the truth without hurting anyone and without humiliating himself too much.” Eleanor Roosevelt, “The Autobiography of Eleanor Roosevelt” - 1961

“I have always had more dread of a pen, a bottle of ink, and a sheet of paper, than of a sword or pistol.” Alexandre Dumas, “The Count of Monte Cristo” - 1845

“But then I realized that writing something is different from saying it—and that love stories are built around people’s idiosyncrasies.” Arnold Schwarzenegger, “Total Recall: My Unbelievably True Life Story” - 2012

“Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people, citizens of distant epochs, who never knew one another. Books break the shackles of time, proof that humans can work magic.” Carl Sagan, “Cosmos” - 1980

“There is, peradventure, no more manifest vanity than to write of it so vainly.” Michel de Montaigne, “The Essays of Michel de Montaigne” - 1580

“Why, because an author has more rights than ordinary people, as everybody knows. People will stand much more from him.” Albert Camus, “The Plague” - 1947

“The idea that creative endeavor and mind-altering substances are entwined is one of the great pop-intellectual myths of our time.” Stephen King, “On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft” - 2000

“Story is honorable and trustworthy; plot is shifty, and best kept under house arrest.” Stephen King, “On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft” - 2000

“The simplicity of noun-verb construction is useful—at the very least it can provide a safety net for your writing.” Stephen King, “On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft” - 2000

“The key to good description begins with clear seeing and ends with clear writing, the kind of writing that employs fresh images and simple vocabulary.” Stephen King, “On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft” - 2000

“The word is only a representation of the meaning; even at its best, writing almost always falls short of full meaning. Given that, why in God’s name would you want to make things worse by choosing a word which is only cousin to the one you...” Stephen King, “On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft” - 2000

“I think the difference between a lie and a story is that a story utilizes the trappings and appearance of truth for the interest of the listener as well as of the teller. A story has in it neither gain nor loss. But a lie is a device for profit...” John Steinbeck, “East of Eden” - 1952

“If they give you ruled paper, write the other way.” Ray Bradbury, “Fahrenheit 451” - 1953

“I have made a silent compact with myself not to change a line of what I write. I am not interested in perfecting my thoughts, nor my actions.” Henry Miller, “Tropic of Cancer” - 1934

Related topics

reading books love truth words heart author life understanding reality imagination story loneliness art poetry simplicity thinking literature creativity drugs

Related authors

Stephen King (24)
Oscar Wilde (4)
William Shakespeare (2)
Jane Austen (2)
Margaret Atwood (2)
Bob Dylan (2)
F. Scott Fitzgerald (1)
Lewis Carroll (1)
George Orwell (1)
Herman Melville (1)
John Green (1)
Charles Dickens (1)
Muhammad Ali (1)
Arthur Conan Doyle (1)
Aldous Huxley (1)
Thomas Hardy (1)
Louisa May Alcott (1)
Thomas Carlyle (1)
Henry Adams (1)
Francis Bacon (1)

Related sources

On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (22)
The Picture of Dorian Gray (4)
The Blind Assassin (2)
Chronicles, Volume One (2)
Twelfth Night (1)
Pride and Prejudice (1)
Love's Labour's Lost (1)
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1)
1984 (1)
Moby-Dick (1)
The Fault in Our Stars (1)
Oliver Twist (1)
The Soul of a Butterfly (1)
A Study in Scarlet (1)
Brave New World (1)
Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1)
Little Women (1)
On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and The Heroic in History (1)
The Education of Henry Adams (1)
The Essays of Francis Bacon (1)

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Stephen King quotes about writing · On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft quotes about writing