So I always like to read quotes by writers about writing. Its very interesting to read their perspectives on their craft. Here is a list of my favorites. Enjoy!

  • “Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia.” -E.L. Doctorow
  • “If there’s a book you really want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” -Toni Morrison
  • “I’m not a very good writer, but I’m an excellent rewriter.” -James Michene
  • “I love writing. I love the swirl and swing of words as they tangle with human emotions.” -James Michener
  • “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 love being a writer. What I can’t stand is the paperwork.” -Peter De Vries
  • “Being an author is like being in charge of your own personal insane asylum.” -Graycie Harmon
  • “Every writer I know has trouble writing.” -Joseph Heller
  • “Most editors are failed writers – but so are most writers. ” -T.S. Eliot
  • “A good style should show no signs of effort. What is written should seem a happy accident.” -W. Somerset Maugham
  • “As to the adjective, when in doubt, strike it out.” -Mark Twain
  • “I think it’s bad to talk about one’s present work, for it spoils something at the root of the creative act. It discharges the tension.” -Norman Mailer
  • “It is impossible to discourage the real writers – they don’t give a damn what you say, they’re going to write.” -Sinclair Lewis
  • “Loafing is the most productive part of a writer’s life.” -James Norman Hall
  • “A writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.” -Thomas Mann
  • “Writers are just people who have a whole lot on the inside that they need to get to the outside, with pen and paper as their preferred method of transport. Same with dancers, artists, and singers – all the same urges with differing transportation.” -Graycie Harmon
  • “Writing is a product of silence.” -Carrie Latet
  • “Be like a duck, my mother used to tell me. Remain calm on the surface and paddle like hell underneath.” -Michael Caine
  • “When in doubt, have a man come through the door with a gun in his hand.” -Raymond Chandler
  • “Write your story as it needs to be written. Write it honestly, and tell it as best you can. I’m not sure that there are any other rules. Not ones that matter.” -Neil Gaiman
  • “They’re fancy talkers about themselves, writers. If I had to give young writers advice, I would say don’t listen to writers talk about writing or themselves.” -Lillian Hellman
  • “The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shock-proof shit detector.” -Ernst Hemingway
  • “If you think you’re boring your audience, go slower not faster.” -Gustav Mahler
  • “Most beginning writers – and I was the same – are like chefs trying to cook great dishes that they’ve never tasted themselves. How can you make a great – or even an adequate – bouillabaisse if you’ve never had any? If you don’t really understand why people read mysteries – or romances or literary novels or thrillers or whatever – then there’s no way in the world you’re going to write one that anyone wants to publish. This is the meaning of the well-known expression ‘Write what you know.’” -Daniel Quinn
  • “The first chapter sells the book. The last chapter sells the next book.” -Mickey Spillane
  • “When in doubt, blow something up”. -J. Michael Straczynski
  • “If you can’t annoy somebody, there’s little point in writing.” -Kingsley Amis
  • “There is no agony like bearing an untold story inside you.” -Z.N. Hurston
  • “If the sex scene doesn’t make you want to do it – whatever it is they’re doing – it hasn’t been written right.” -Sloan Wilson
  • “Thank your readers and the critics who praise you, and then ignore them. Write for the most intelligent, wittiest, wisest audience in the universe: Write to please yourself.” -Harlan Ellison
  • “This manuscript of yours that has just come back from another editor is a precious package. Don’t consider it rejected. Consider that you’ve addressed it ‘to the editor who can appreciate my work’ and it has simply come back stamped ‘Not at this address’. Just keep looking for the right address.” -Barbara Kingsolver
  • “I am sitting in the smallest room of my house. I have your review before me. In a moment it shall be behind me.” -Max Reger
  • “Any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae.” -Kurt Vonnegut
  • “It is perfectly okay to write garbage – as long as you edit brilliantly.” -C. J. Cherryh
  • “The only reason I didn’t kill myself after I read the reviews of my first book was because we have two rivers in New York and I couldn’t decide which one to jump into” – Wilfrid Sheed
  • “When you are describing,
    A shape, or sound, or tint;
    Don’t state the matter plainly,
    But put it in a hint;
    And learn to look at all things,
    With a sort of mental squint.” -Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll)

So Those are it, I hope they inspire you. And if you have another please leave a comment.