Quotes on Writing

For me, writing a short story is much, much harder than writing a novel.

Author: Lynn Abbey

Among all kinds of Writing, there is none in which Authors are more apt to miscarry than in Works of Humour, as there is none in which they are more ambitious to excel.

Author: Joseph Addison

If you can't annoy somebody, there's little point in writing.

Author: Kingsley Amis

I never do a full outline, and if I did, I would not feel bound to it, because the view from inside a scene can be different from the view outside it. But neither do I just start writing and see what happens; I am far more disciplined than that.

Author: Piers Anthony

I'm passionate again about writing. This is important to me; it's got to be the comeback book.

Author: Jeffrey Archer

Writing comes more easily if you have something to say.

Author: Sholem Asch

I started writing to please myself, a story I would like to read, and that is still true.

Author: Jean Auel

I like pens. My writing is so amazing there's never a need to erase.

Author: Todd Barry

Sometimes I wish the writing and drawing were more integrated.

Author: Alison Bechdel

Of all fatiguing, futile, empty trades, the worst, I suppose, is writing about writing.

Author: Hilaire Belloc

I am writing a book about the Crusades so dull that I can scarcely write it.

Author: Hilaire Belloc

It helps to be able to be alone. 'Cuz writing is done alone, unless you collaborate, but I don't do that. Ask my ex-wife.

Author: Dirk Benedict

You fail only if you stop writing.

Author: Ray Bradbury

There is no great writing, only great rewriting.

Author: Justice Brandeis

Shake was a dramatist of note; He lived by writing things to quote.

Author: H. Bunner

All the nice things about Suzanne are me. All the things that aren't nice, that was just the writing.

Author: Delta Burke

And I tend to listen to NPR when I'm not writing.

Author: Augusten Burroughs

I'm terrible at story and structure, but I'm not so bad at writing dialogue.

Author: Steve Buscemi

Well, writing was what I wanted to do, it was always what I wanted to do. I had novels to write so I wrote them.

Author: Octavia Butler

I am so happy to be on a show with writing I wanted to participate in.

Author: Yancy Butler

I didn't have any agenda or plan when I started writing stuff.

Author: David Byrne

But with writing, all you need is a pad of paper.

Author: Scott Caan

After that, I specifically started writing lyrics. I would like sweat and think and get it all together.

Author: Jim Capaldi

That isn't writing at all, it's typing.

Author: Truman Capote

Writing sessions can last an hour or sixteen hours, depending on how it's going.

Author: Orson Card

Cursive writing does not mean what I think it does.

Author: Nancy Cartwright

I'm not sure why writing for others became harder. Probably a reluctance to give away anything you might conceivably use yourself caused a block. I did it, but it remained hard when it had once been easy.

Author: Dick Cavett

Just after writing those we were called up to defend a new position on the left, where the terrible storming of the bridge over the Antietam took place.

Author: Joshua Chamberlain

Writing about dead white males seems to be out of favor among academics.

Author: Ron Chernow

Not only are Christians writing about Jesus, but also Communists, Jews, atheists and agnostics are taking up their pens to paint a portrait of Jesus.

Author: John Clayton

I enjoy writing for third and fourth graders most of all.

Author: Beverly Cleary

In writing I found something I could do at least as well as my peers, if not better.

Author: Brian Cleary

You would go mad if you began to speculate about the impact your novel might have while you were still writing it.

Author: Jonathan Coe

Luckily, in my case, I have managed, by writing, to do the one thing that I always wanted to do.

Author: Jonathan Coe

Writing only leads to more writing.

Author: Sidonie Colette

Re-writing is different from writing. Original writing is very difficult.

Author: David Cronenberg

Writing seems to be more difficult as you move through the years.

Author: George Crumb

It's much like writing a screenplay with someone else and that's how we view it, I think.

Author: Christopher Darden

Writing doesn't come easily to me. It gets more and more difficult.

Author: Elizabeth David

And eventually as I kept writing it, something emerged that was not quite me but a version of me.

Author: Larry David

The problem, for me, with the writing programs is that they produce a terrible uniformity of product.

Author: Peter Davison

I'm like a junkie for writing.

Author: Gavin DeGraw

For me, writing is 75 percent procrastinating and 25 percent actually sitting down and working.

Author: Zooey Deschanel

I didn't know anything about writing a screenplay, but somehow I ended up rewriting a screenplay.

Author: Kate DiCamillo

I got a book deal without even turning in one shred of a writing sample.

Author: Janice Dickinson

I've always loved writing.

Author: Casper Dien

What writing does is to reveal.

Author: Rita Dove

I'm very involved in the writing on every level.

Author: Fran Drescher

My lyrics are generated by various peculiar processes. Very random and similar to automatic writing.

Author: Brian Eno

Writing is the beast unto itself.

Author: Omar Epps

I'm a crap guitarist and I find it really hard writing on my own.

Author: Siobhan Fahey

So I decided to start writing plays, and went to Yale.

Author: Richard Foreman

Novel writing wrecks homes.

Author: C. Forester

I've been writing full-time since 1978.

Author: Alan Foster

Especially in the last 10 years, the writing on animated shows has jumped by leaps and bounds.

Author: Will Friedle

I started writing when I was about 20, 21 maybe.

Author: Neil Gaiman

That's why, when Alias came along, I knew I'd be OK if the show was on for five or six years because the writing was so good and the creative team was so strong.

Author: Victor Garber

I find it both fascinating and disconcerting when I discover yet another person who believes that writing can't be taught. Frankly, I don't understand this point of view.

Author: Elizabeth George

You know what you are best at, and writing is just not my thing, but I like it.

Author: Sara Gilbert

This motion-picture muddle had distracted me from my writing.

Author: Zane Grey

I did not have one bad spell during writing - an unprecedented record.

Author: Zane Grey

Writing has become such an outlet for me that when I don't have it, I just get pent up.

Author: Emm Gryner

Writing with you is the only thing that keeps me alive.

Author: David Hackworth

I was very happy sitting alone at a dining room table, writing a script.

Author: Conrad Hall

I found the writing arena to be much less competitive.

Author: Phil Hartman

Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards.

Author: Robert Heinlein

I get a great high from writing.

Author: Walter Hill

I had been writing professionally since 1988.

Author: Laura Hillenbrand

How can you stop writing?

Author: Tony Hillerman

Readers are what it's all about, aren't they? If not, why am I writing?

Author: Evan Hunter

I'm not happy when I'm writing, but I'm more unhappy when I'm not.

Author: Fannie Hurst

No, absolutely not, writing doesn't have to be like a jigsaw puzzle, it can be a very linear undertaking.

Author: Guillermo Infante

I liked Sartre's views but not his writing.

Author: Tahar Jelloun

Writing is really very easy. Tap a vein and bleed onto the page. Everything else is just technical.

Author: Derrick Jensen

It's the same thing in a way, although writing a book is a very solitary thing.

Author: Neil Jordan

I think if the writing comes too easily, it shows - it's usually hard to read.

Author: Tracy Kidder

I don't exist without writing.

Author: Jewel Kilcher

The essays are different because ultimately it's things I'm interested in, and I'm really just writing about myself and using those subjects as a prism.

Author: Chuck Klosterman

Once I start writing about something, it goes off rather fast, and sometimes details which might be interesting such as what the room looked like or what somebody said that was not exactly on the same subject tend to get lost.

Author: Kenneth Koch

I never sit down to write. When I'm moved, I do it. I just wait for it to come. You just hear it. I can't really describe writing. It's in my head.

Author: Lenny Kravitz

I like to be surprised. The best writing is when it defies me, when it starts going a different way than I had planned.

Author: Wally Lamb

I am never going to write for the sake of writing.

Author: Emma Lazarus

It's very selfish when I write. I'm not aware, ever, of writing for another person; I'm not even really aware of writing for myself.

Author: Tanith Lee

Writing, producing and directing, I must say, is incredibly satisfying and gratifying. I've never been happier.

Author: Jennifer Leigh

In the writing process, the more a story cooks, the better.

Author: Doris Lessing

I honestly feel like we never had a bad episode by TV standards. Every week I felt there were so many strong components of the show, especially the writing.

Author: Donal Logue

I never earned a dollar that was not somehow through writing.

Author: Walter Lord

Rock is all about writing your own script; it's all about pioneering.

Author: Courtney Love

I'm really proud of the writing on Door to Door, and I think that's the Emmy that meant the most - the writing.

Author: William Macy

Revision is one of the exquisite pleasures of writing.

Author: Bernard Malamud

You can get stale writing with each other for a while.

Author: Barry Mann

What I said about John was that he liberated me from my anxieties about writing in a correct, acceptable way.

Author: Harry Mathews

We're writing a book together. She just finished one. Did you read it? Among the Porcupines?

Author: Walter Matthau

Writing is the supreme solace.

Author: W. Maugham

I don't know why I started writing. I don't know why anybody does it. Maybe they're bored, or failures at something else.

Author: Cormac McCarthy

I'm more interested in writing than in performing.

Author: Frank McCourt

I've been writing in notebooks for 40 years or so.

Author: Frank McCourt

Learn your instrument. Be honest. Don't do anything phony. There is so much crap floating around. There is plenty of room for a bit of honest writing.

Author: Christine McVie

I'm addicted to creating and writing.

Author: Bret Michaels

I've always been able to survive by writing, though.

Author: John Milius

I'm honestly as happy writing Superman Adventures as I am writing Wanted.

Author: Mark Millar

Writing the book was itself a process of concealing and revealing.

Author: Rick Moody

I did not think much what I was writing them for, except that I knew I wanted my next novel to be in some less conventional form than straight narrative.

Author: Nicholas Mosley

It is not about writing those hits again. I am sure I could write them, but it is about the sensibilities.

Author: Alison Moyet

Great writing is great writing. It's as simple as all that.

Author: Kate Mulgrew

If I did anything 'next,' I would do writing.

Author: Ellen Muth

That element of surprise is what I look for when I am writing. It is my way of judging what I am doing - which is never an easy thing to do.

Author: V. Naipaul

I like myself better when I'm writing regularly.

Author: Willie Nelson

Writing is like carrying a fetus.

Author: Edna O'Brien

Good writing is like a windowpane.

Author: George Orwell

I really don't know what I am going to do in terms of what a book is going to be about until I actually start writing it!

Author: Robert Parker

As far as modern writing is concerned, it is rarely rewarding to translate it, although it might be easy. Translation is very much like copying paintings.

Author: Boris Pasternak

Writing and telling are almost the same, the way I do it.

Author: Daniel Pinkwater

My writing is remarkably non-confessional; you actually learn very little about me.

Author: Michael Pollan

Yes, I very much like to have a personal stake in what I'm writing about.

Author: Michael Pollan

I think the hardest part of writing is revising. And by that I mean the following: A novelist has to create the piece of marble and then chip away to find the figure in it.

Author: Chaim Potok

I accept challenges, I have always done that in writing.

Author: Jack Prelutsky

I write because I can't imagine not writing.

Author: Richard Price

I started writing when I was about thirteen.

Author: Al Purdy

If you're writing a novel, you're in a room for three or four years. There's not much coming in from the outside.

Author: Mordecai Richler

I loved the process of writing.

Author: Nora Roberts

Writing of that caliber spoils you for any other kind of writing for awhile. But that's probably good.

Author: Mercedes Ruehl

Seventy percent of what I write, I throw out. I can write very easily, but writing original things is the hard bit.

Author: Mike Rutherford

Major writing is to say what has been seen, so that it need never be said again.

Author: Delmore Schwartz

Even this vein of writing is so foreign to me that I am amazed.

Author: David Selznick

I think the writing on the wall is definitely there this year that this is probably our last year.

Author: Michael Shanks

Writing novels is the most exciting.

Author: Sidney Sheldon

I'm incapable of writing without social commentary. I like to think that it's integrated and not really heavy handedly didactic.

Author: John Shirley

Writing on a contract for a major studio you get the very best.

Author: Terry Southern

For a director and a producer to be named on the writing credits is practically unheard of.

Author: Terry Southern

If a reporter doesn't like the person he's writing about, it shows up in his article.

Author: Willie Stargell

I've always liked new writing.

Author: Imelda Staunton

I started writing stories as a child.

Author: Danielle Steel

Writing is the only thing that, when I do it, I don't feel I should be doing something else.

Author: Gloria Steinem

When I was a teenager, I got into SF, quite heavily, and that too has had a major impact on my writing.

Author: George Stephen

Well, I just wanted to be a person. I just wanted them to keep writing me as humanistic as possible.

Author: Fisher Stevens

The process of creating is related to the process of dreaming although when you are writing you're doing it and when you're dreaming, it's doing you.

Author: Robert Stone

I don't start writing a script until I can see it all in my head, then it's a matter of getting it down in white heat.

Author: J. Straczynski

Vigorous writing is concise.

Author: William Strunk, Jr.

There is no way of writing stories that I haven't done.

Author: Theodore Sturgeon

Of course the playing is important but writing and the establishing of what you are going for is prime too.

Author: Andy Summers

I don't know if you've ever tried writing a Doctor Who story, but it's a lot more difficult than it initially appears, especially if you've got more than one assistant.

Author: Sarah Sutton

When I'm writing something, I try not to get analytical about it as I'm doing it, as I'm writing it.

Author: Quentin Tarantino

Actually, I enjoy the process of writing a big long novel.

Author: Donna Tartt

I was burned out. I think I was just exhausted. It was a very intense five years. We didn't stop. It was constant touring, constant writing, recording.

Author: Roger Taylor

I think I'm drawn to writing about something which feels intense and important.

Author: Rose Tremain

There is no way of writing well and also of writing easily.

Author: Anthony Trollope

But usually I'll wake up and start writing about nine o'clock. I'll probably write for about three hours, and I'll do that over the next month and a half.

Author: Stanley Tucci

If I waited till I felt like writing, I'd never write at all.

Author: Anne Tyler

Even if I knew for certain that I would never have anything published again, and would never make another cent from it, I would still keep on writing.

Author: Brenda Ueland