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Writing quotes

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“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

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

“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

“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

“Perhaps I write for no one. Perhaps for the same person children are writing for, when they scrawl their names in the snow.” Margaret Atwood, “The Blind Assassin” - 2000

“He writes because for him it is a luxury which becomes the more agreeable and more evident, the fewer there are who buy and read what he writes.” Søren Kierkegaard, “Fear and Trembling” - 1843

“Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depths of your heart; confess to yourself whether you would have to die if you were forbidden to write.” Rainer Maria Rilke, “Letters to a Young Poet” - 1929

“But I wrote because I couldn’t stop. It was a release, a mental exercise, a way of keeping sane.” Jay-Z, “Decoded” - 2010

“You just don’t wake up one day and decide that you need to write songs, especially if you’re a singer who has plenty of them and you’re learning more every day.” Bob Dylan, “Chronicles, Volume One” - 2004

“You might be able to put it all into one paragraph or into one verse of a song if you could get it right.” Bob Dylan, “Chronicles, Volume One” - 2004

“He was conscious of nothing except the blankness of the page in front of him, the itching of the skin above his ankle, the blaring of the music, and a slight booziness caused by the gin.” George Orwell, “1984” - 1949

“He lives the poetry that he cannot write. The others write the poetry that they dare not realize.” Oscar Wilde, “The Picture of Dorian Gray” - 1890

Related topics

reading truth words books love understanding reality heart story art poetry literature creativity author death life doubt mind reason hiding

Related authors

Stephen King (10)
Oscar Wilde (4)
William Shakespeare (2)
Jane Austen (2)
Margaret Atwood (2)
Bob Dylan (2)
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)
Thomas Carlyle (1)
Henry Adams (1)
Francis Bacon (1)
Ulysses S. Grant (1)
Friedrich Nietzsche (1)
Anatole France (1)

Related sources

On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (10)
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)
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)
On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and The Heroic in History (1)
The Education of Henry Adams (1)
The Essays of Francis Bacon (1)
Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant (1)
Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1)