Be A Writer Quotes

I want to be a writer someday. ~ Andrea Barber

I wanted to be a writer from my early teenage years, but I never told anyone. Writers, in my opinion, were god-like creatures, and to say I was striving to be a writer would be incredibly arrogant. ~ Tim Cahill

Well, you know, I'm quite a reluctant writer. I'm not someone who set out to be a writer or really wanted to be. ~ Jennifer Westfeldt

All you had to say was, 'I am a writer,' and you became one. You didn't even have to write anything. You could just sit in a coffee shop with a notebook and stare into space, with a slightly bemused look on your face, judging the weight of the world with a jaundiced eye. As you can see, you can be completely full of shit and still be a writer ... I also thought it was going to be a great way to meet girls, but it wasn't
probably because as I was staring into space, I no doubt looked mildly retarded. You see, I wanted to write plays, which in retrospect is a lot harder than learning Mandarin, I think. How I ended up in this delusional state shall be saved for another time. ~ Lewis Black

The book that convinced me I wanted to be a writer was 'Crime and Punishment'. I put the thing down after reading it in a fever over two or three days ... I said, 'If this is what a book can be, then that is what I want to do.' ~ Paul Auster

Not everyone is meant to be a writer," Shyla said. "I do believe, however, that everyone has a story within them to be written. ~ Barbara Casey

When I was a child I used to read books by Gerald Durrell, who founded Jersey Zoo. He had a job collecting animals for zoos and for a long time that is what I wanted to do. Later when I was a teenager I had a fantastic English teacher called Mrs. Stafford. Her enthusiasm made me decide to be a writer. ~ Melvin Burgess

I knew I wanted to be a writer. Where I came from, no one was a writer. I came from Long Island, and everyone became a doctor or a lawyer or an engineer or a teacher or a businessman. I didn't know any writers. ~ Howard Gordon

I love working with actors. I love visual things. I always intended to be a writer who directs and a director who writes. ~ Charlie Kaufman

You want to be a writer, don't know how or when? Find a quiet place, use a humble pen. ~ Paul Simon

I think every American kid grows up dreaming about being in the movies. That's completely normal for us. But I mostly wanted to be a writer, and I got taught the scriptwriting program. ~ David Labrava

Understand, I had absolutely no interest in writing; I wanted to be a Writer. ~ Kate DiCamillo

I want to be a writer, not an engineer who writes books. ~ Paulo Coelho

I always wanted to be a writer ... 'Critical Care' was my first published work. I was 34 when it came out. I was accumulating 'Critical Care' for years. I would go for a whole year and not touch it. And then I'd go back to it. ~ Richard Dooling

When I went to the University of Iowa in order to be a writer, I thought, This is the worst way to learn how to write. To sit in a room with a bunch of would-be writers, who want to write the Great American Novel, every one of them, and you read their stories and they read yours, and you're not living a life. I don't like that. I like learning on the job. The character of my work has definitely evolved from the character of my life. ~ Joe Frank

I haven't said anything about your novel yet,' he said, taking a seat on the other side of the table. 'But it made an indelible impression on me. I was deeply shaken after reading it.'
'Why's that?' I asked.
'Because you went so far. You went so unbelievably far. I was glad you did, I was sitting here, smiling, because you had brought it off. When we met you wanted to be a writer. No one else had had the idea. Only you. And then you achieved it. But that wasn't why I was shaken. It was because you went so far. Do you really have to go that far, I thought at the time. And it was frightening. Speaking for myself, I can't go that far.'
'What do you mean? How do you mean I went so far? It's just a standard novel.'
'You say things about yourself it's unheard of to say. Not least the story of the thirteen-year-old. I'd never have thought you would dare. ~ Karl Ove Knausgaard

I always wanted to be a writer, but Alan Moore's work and help inspired me to write comics. In some ways the biggest influence on me writing was Punk. There was the idea that you could do something by simply doing it. ~ Neil Gaiman

My mother wanted me to be a writer. But she was a child of the Depression and never understood that she wasn't poor. So, you know, the idea of not having a job, it would creep through. But she tried very hard to be subtle about it. ~ Richard Greenberg

If you've never hurt anyone, put down your keyboard and go apply for sainthood. You are the wrong kind of liar to be a writer. ~ Victoria Mixon

I wanted to be a writer, that's all. I wanted to write about it all. Everything that happens in a moment. The way the flowers looked when you carried them in your arms. This towel, how it smells, how it feels, this thread. All our feelings, yours and mine. The history of it, who we once were. Everything in the world. Everything all mixed up, like it's all mixed up now. ~ Michael Cunningham

She: Do you always enjoy your struggle?

Me: Yes I do! There is no other meaningful way of living my life. My struggle to give voice to my thoughts is exhilarating. My struggle to channelize my thoughts to an audience is amazingly fulfilling. To write my feelings in words is greatly liberating. It is like my mind has all these thoughts and ideas that need to be shared with the esteemed audience!

She: What is your purpose of being a writer?

Me: A writer's life is a lonely life. The loneliness gives me time to be with myself. I am most happy when I am with myself. This loneliness is like my true existence. I don't need to search for a meaning in life. I have my struggle. I have a purpose. My reason for existence is my struggle to be a writer. ~ Avijeet Das

There is no ceremony, no initiation ritual, no secret hand-shake. All you need to be a writer is to write. ~ M. Kirin

When people ask me what qualifies me to be a writer for children, I say I was once a child. But I was not only a child, I was, better still, a weird little kid, and though I would never choose to give my own children this particular preparation for life, there are few things, apparently, more helpful to a writer than having once been a weird little kid. ~ Katherine Paterson

To be a writer one must bleed from the pen. ~ Sandra Saulnier

If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. ~ Stephen King

It's not possible to advise a young writer because every young writer is so different. You might say, 'Read,' but a writer can read too much and be paralyzed. Or, 'Don't read, don't think, just write,' and the result could be a mountain of drivel. If you're going to be a writer you'll probably take a lot of wrong turns and then one day just end up writing something you have to write, then getting it better and better just because you want it to be better, and even when you get old and think 'There must be something else people do,' you won't quite be able to quit. ~ Alice Munro

Learn a lot about the world and finish things, even if it is just a short story. Finish it before you start something else. Finish it before you start rewriting it. That's really important.
It's to find out if you're going to be a writer or not, because that's one of the most important lessons.
Most, maybe 90% of people, will start writing and never finish what they started. If you want to be a writer that's the hardest and most important lesson: Finish it. Then go back to fix it. ~ Tad Williams

Through the years the swirl of a pen, click of a key, and the idea of a story have been my deepest passion. I never just decided to become a writer. I was born to be a writer. I knew it from childhood. ~ Sai Marie Johnson

It was wintertime. I was starving to death trying to be a writer in New York. I hadn't eaten for three or four days. So, I finally said, "I'm gonna have a big bag of popcorn." And God, I hadn't tasted food for so long, it was so good. Each kernel, you know, each one was like a steak! I chewed and it would just drop into my poor stomach. My stomach would say, "THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!" I was in heaven, just walking along, and two guys happened by, and one said to the other, "Jesus Christ!" The other one said, "What was it?" "Did you see that guy eating popcorn? God, it was awful!" And so I couldn't enjoy the rest of the popcorn. I thought; what do you mean, "it was awful?" I'm in heaven here. I guess I was kinda dirty. They can always tell a fucked-up guy. ~ Charles Bukowski

Harriet pushed her hair back and looked at him seriously. 'Sport, what are you going to be when you grow up?'
'You know what. You know I'm going to be a ball player.'
'Well, I'm going to be a writer. And when I say that's a mountain, that's a mountain.' Satisfied, she turned back to her town. ~ Louise Fitzhugh

Writing was the soul of everything else ... Wanting to be a writer was wanting to be a person. ~ Patricia Hampl

As a child, I amused myself by making up stories. I'd lie in bed when I was supposed to be sleeping and imagine other lands where people were doing fascinating things. By fifth grade, I knew I wanted to be a writer, but it took several more decades to really find my way as an author. ~ Victoria Hanley

For me, self-esteem-building and confidence-building is the foundation for anything that we do, whether you want to be a writer, a painter, or a entrepreneur. ~ Hill Harper

Read as widely and as deeply as you can. You have to be a reader before you can be a writer. ~ Y.S. Lee

You're meant to have an unhappy childhood to be a writer, but there's a lot to be said for a very happy one that just lets you get on with it. ~ Emma Donoghue

Other than being an artist, I've also wanted to be a writer since I was able to read. The simple fact is that I've aslo been a writer my whole life. Thanks to the magic of blogs and self-publishing, anyone can be a writer now. In fact, even before all of these new and exciting outlets became available anyone still could be a writer. It's actually a simple process. Just begin writing. You don't need anyone's permission, or a degree; hell, you don't even need an audience. Just write. The act of writing makes you a writer. So now that I've completed this book, I dub myself an Official Writer. ~ Cee Jay Inky Jones

For years, I never really pondered how I came to be a writer from where I came from. ~ Nick Tosches

Just write. If you have to make a choice, if you say, 'Oh well, I'm going to put the writing away until my children are grown,' then you don't really want to be a writer. If you want to be a writer, you do your writing ... If you don't do it, you probably don't want to be a writer, you just want to have written and be famous - which is very different. ~ Jane Yolen

Writers remember everything ... especially the hurts. Strip a writer to the buff, point to the scars, and he'll tell you the story of each small one. From the big ones you get novels. A little talent is a nice thing to have if you want to be a writer, but the only real requirement is the ability to remember the story of every scar.
Art consists of the persistence of memory. ~ Stephen King

My ambition really was, even as a child, to be a writer, a commentator, and a teacher, but a teacher of Talmud. ~ Elie Wiesel

I had no plans to be a writer. My teenaged bid for stardom was to be a pop star ... which, ahem, didn't exactly work out. ~ Sophie Kinsella

I have a lot of favorite films. I tend to love the silliness of 'Bringing Up Baby.' 'Charade' is fantastic. 'His Girl Friday,' the banter in that, that alone made me want to be a writer. ~ Jennifer Grant

I really think that reading is just as important as writing when you're trying to be a writer because it's the only apprenticeship we have, it's the only way of learning how to write a story. ~ John Green

When I was sixteen or seventeen, I wanted to be a writer. I wanted to be a playwright. But everything I wrote, I thought, was weak. And I can remember falling asleep in tears because I had no talent the way I wanted to have. ~ Francis Ford Coppola

I'd love to be a writer one day ~ Danielle Steel

I want to go to college for literature. I want to be a writer. I mean, I love what I do, but its not all I want to do-be a professional liar for the rest of my life. ~ Kristen Stewart

There were always men looking for jobs in America. There were always all these usable bodies. And I wanted to be a writer. Almost everybody was a writer. Not everybody thought they could be a dentist or an automobile mechanic but everybody knew they could be a writer. Of those fifty guys in the room, probably fifteen of them
thought they were writers. Almost everybody used words and could write them down, i.e., almost everybody could be a writer. But most men, fortunately, aren't writers, or even cab drivers, and some men - many men - unfortunately aren't anything. ~ Charles Bukowski

I knew the alphabet. Maybe I could be a writer. ~ Hubert Selby, Jr.

I always wanted to write, even before I realized that there was a comedy writers' world, or what that life was like. I never thought of myself, at least as a little kid, in terms of being the onscreen talent. I always thought it'd be so much fun to write sketches and be a writer. Even as little as 6 or 7, that's what my main interest was. ~ Mindy Kaling

I used to be a writer with superstitions worthy of a professional baseball player: I needed a certain desk chair and a certain armchair and a certain desk arrangement, and I could only get really useful work done between 8 P.M. and 3 A.M. Then I started to move, and I couldn't bring my chairs with me. ~ Elizabeth McCracken

I knew from the time I was a young girl that I was destined to be a writer. I'm incredibly stubborn. The more someone tells me I can't do something, the harder I work to prove them wrong. My father's nickname for me when I was growing up was 'Hardhead.' ~ Lori Wilde

There she was, up on that bed pushing and pushing just as they'd practiced. She was dilated and the tension had been building to this moment all day. He had never been so glad to be a writer. It meant that he could be here and he could be at home, helping her as much as he liked after the baby was born. Wendy was sweating and bleary-eyed, focusing so very hard on the movement of her baby down the birth canal that it took her a moment to hear what anyone said to her. The pain was clearly unimaginable and he wished he could have taken some of it from her, but she'd insisted on a natural birth and that's just what she was doing.
"Are you okay, Babe?" She'd grown extra quiet in the last few moments, tension lines growing deeper in her face, her hands clawing at the bed rails as she pushed. She was trying so hard to endure and to get through that he had to ask again. "Are you okay?"
She looked at him from the bed with all the nurses and the doctor flitting about the room watching her vital signs, monitoring the baby's heart rate and her own and of course, guiding the course of the birth itself. She said something he barely heard. "No, no something is…"and then they all knew. ~ Amanda M. Lyons

I wrote 1000 words yesterday and today I deleted them all. Who'd be a writer. ~ Ellie James

Anyone who wants to be a writer should, if given the opportunity, hang out with "real writers," that is, poets or writers who are lions in literature, semi-lions, or published authors. ~ Kirby Wright

Those who would like to become writers attend courses on writing poetry and prose and analyze their own work and that of other writers in development. Teachers teach them that talent is not required and that anyone, who wants to be a writer, can do it if they only master the technique of writing and master the formulas of the genre that they choose. With a little brain storming ideas written on cards, as well as designs and plans on the table, one can even write a novel in a month. There is no secret; the whole secret is in the technique, a little research, and the rest is solved by form, according to a formula, in which it is all nicely wrapped up and packaged.
And so, a bestseller is born. ~ Dejan Stojanovic

I was starting to wonder if I was ready to be a writer, not someone who won prizes, got published and was given the time and space to work, but someone who wrote as a course of life. Maybe writing wouldn't have any rewards. Maybe the salvation I would gain through work would only be emotional and intellectual. Wouldn't that be enough, to be a waitress who found an hour or two hidden in every day to write? ~ Ann Patchett

Once I was asked be a seatmate on a trans-Pacific flight....what instruction he should give his fifteen-year-old daughters, who wanted to be a writer. [I said], "Tell your daughter three things." Tell her to read...Tell her to read whatever interests her, and protect her if someone declares what she's reading to be trash. No one can fathom what happens between a human being and written language. She may be paying attention to things in the words beyond anyone else's comprehension, things that feed her curiosity, her singular heart and mind. ...Second, I said, tell your daughter that she can learn a great deal about writing by reading and by studying books about grammar and the organization of ideas, but that if she wishes to write well she will have to become someone. She will have to discover her beliefs, and then speak to us from within those beliefs. If her prose doesn't come out of her belief, whatever that proves to be, she will only be passing along information, of which we are in no great need. So help her discover what she means.
Finally, I said, tell your daughter to get out of town, and help her do that. I don't necessarily mean to travel to Kazakhstan, or wherever, but to learn another language, to live with people other than her own, to separate herself from the familiar. Then, when she returns, she will be better able to understand why she loves the familiar, and will give us a fresh sense of how fortunate we are to share these things.
Read. Find out ~ Barry Lopez

I think writing is such a great talent, and if I was better, I would love to be a writer. ~ Shiloh Fernandez

No wonder you want to be a writer. How can you not, with all that behind you? You practically are a novel already. ~ Sylvia Brownrigg

To be a writer you need to see things as they are, and to see things as they are you need a certain basic innocence. ~ Tobias Wolff

If I went to someone for therapy, I wouldn't be a writer ... I would just be well adjusted. ~ Garth Stein

He often said he had to be a writer because he wasn't good at anything else. He was not good at being an employee. Back in the mid-1950's, he was employed for Sports Illustrated, briefly. He reported back to work, was asked to write a short piece on a racehorse that jumped over a fence and tried to run away. Kurt stared at the blank piece of paper all morning and then typed, "The horse jumped over the fucking fence," and walked out, self-employed again. ~ Mark Vonnegut

When I was young, I kept trying to read 'Moby-Dick', and I couldn't get that far into it. And I kept thinking, 'Well, man, if I can't read the great American novel, I could never be a writer.' And this bothered me a great deal. ~ Nick Tosches

And I love being a writer because I want to leave something here on earth to make it better, prettier, stronger. I want to do something important in my life, and I think that adding beauty to the world with books like The Relatives Came or Waiting to Waltz or Henry and Mudge and the Forever Sea really is important. Every person is able to add beauty, whether by growing flowers, or singing, or cooking luscious meals, or raising sweet pets. Every part of life can be art. I am so grateful to be a writer. I hope every child grows up and finds something to do that will seem important and that will seem precious. Happy living and, especially, happy playing. ~ Cynthia Rylant

One of the dumbest things you were ever taught was to write what you know. Because what you know is usually dull. Remember when you first wanted to be a writer? Eight or ten years old, reading about thin-lipped heroes flying over mysterious viny jungles toward untold wonders? That's what you wanted to write about, about what you didn't know. So. What mysterious time and place don't we know?
[Remember This: Write What You Don't Know (New York Times Book Review, December 31, 1989)] ~ Ken Kesey

I always knew I wanted to be a writer. I just wasn't sure what I wanted to do as a money-making job. ~ Hannah Kent

On writing, my advice is the same to all. If you want to be a writer, write. Write and write and write. If you stop, start again. Save everything that you write. If you feel blocked, write through it until you feel your creative juices flowing again. Write. Writing is what makes a writer, nothing more and nothing less. - Ignore critics. Critics are a dime a dozen. Anybody can be a critic. Writers are priceless. - Go where the pleasure is in your writing. Go where the pain is. Write the book you would like to read. Write the book you have been trying to find but have not found. But write. And remember, there are no rules for our profession. Ignore rules. Ignore what I say here if it doesn't help you. Do it your own way. - Every writer knows fear and discouragement. Just write. - The world is crying for new writing. It is crying for fresh and original voices and new characters and new stories. If you won't write the classics of tomorrow, well, we will not have any. Good luck. ~ Anne Rice

The day when I am no more than a writer I shall cease to be a writer. ~ Albert Camus

You can't be beautiful and a writer, because to be a writer you have to be the one doing the looking; if you're beautiful people will be looking at you. ~ Niall Williams

The first thing you have to understand is that I was not desperate to be a writer. I was never a closet writer filing away notes in a cupboard. ~ Vikas Swarup

The silver lining of those years when I was trying to get 'Tinkers' published but couldn't were the years when I had to decide, Why do I want to be a writer? I realized that writing is the thing itself; writing is not a means to publication, writing is not a predicate of publication, so I spent years making art for art's sake. ~ Paul Harding

I sort of knew very early on that I wanted to be a writer. Even in high school, I was a big movie buff, very much into TV shows, and would critique them. ~ Lena Waithe

I thought I'd definitely be a writer, whatever I did. ~ Thomas Keneally

I wanted to be a writer, but at the time, I spent my days working a retail job, my nights sleeping in my childhood bedroom, and while I had written short stories here and there, I didn't know how to write good fiction anymore than I knew how to perform good brain surgery. ~ Anthony Marra

Trapnel wanted, among other things, to be a writer, a dandy, a lover, a comrade, an eccentric, a sage, a virtuoso, a good chap, a man of honour, a hard case, a spendthrift, an opportunist, a raisonneur; to be very rich, to be very poor, to possess a thousand mistresses, to win the heart of one love to whom he was ever faithful, to be on the best of terms with all men, to avenge savagely the lightest affront, to live to a hundred full of years and honour, to die young and unknown but recognized the following day as the most neglected genius of the age. Each of these ambitions had something to recommend it from one angle or another, with the possible exception of being poor - the only aim Trapnel achieved with unqualified mastery - and even being poor, as Trapnel himself asserted, gave the right to speak categorically when poverty was discussed by people like Evadne Clapham. ~ Anthony Powell

I went through a phase where I wanted to be a writer ... but it's not social enough. ~ Sophie Kennedy Clark

I tried almost every genre. I decided at 14 I wanted to be a writer. I think I had to wait until they invented word processors to get serious about it, but I really tried every genre, and fantasy was the one that gave me the scope to do the most ... you could play with worlds more. ~ Jennifer Fallon

I was brought up in a home where I saw my parents read and I was taken to bookshops and libraries, so I grew up feeling very comfortable around books. Also, Ireland is a country which has honoured its writers and poets, so when someone says they wanted to be a writer, its not mocked or looked down upon. ~ Michael Scott

To be a writer you have to be out in the world, you have to risk yourself in the world, you have to be immersed in the world, you have to go out looking for it. This becomes harder as you get older because there's less energy, the days are shorter for older people and it's not so easy to go out and immerse oneself in the world outside. ~ V.S. Naipaul

I honestly think in order to be a writer, you have to learn to be reverent. If not, why are you writing? Why are you here? Let's think of reverence as awe, as presence in and openness to the world. The alternative is that we stultify, we shut down. Think of those times when you've read prose or poetry that is presented in such a way that you have a fleeting sense of being startled by beauty or insight, by a glimpse into someone's soul. All of a sudden everything seems to fit together or at least to have some meaning for a moment. This is our goal as writers, I think; to help others have this sense of
please forgive me
wonder, of seeing things anew, things that can catch us off guard, that break in on our small, bordered worlds. ~ Anne Lamott

If you want to be a writer, write. Write and write and write. ~ Anne Rice

I want to be a writer. I do not want to spend 40 hours a week handling e-mails, formatting covers, finding editors, etc. ~ Amanda Hocking

When I began writing, the words that inspired me were these: A writer is someone who has written today. If you want to be a writer, whats stopping you? ~ J. A. Jance

I wrote stories from the time I was a little girl, but I didn't want to be a writer. I wanted to be an actress. I didn't realize then that it's the same impulse. It's make-believe. It's performance. The only difference being that a writer can do it all alone. I was struck a few years ago when a friend of ours - an actress - was having dinner here with us and a couple of other writers. It suddenly occurred to me that she was the only person in the room who couldn't plan what she was going to do. She had to wait for someone to ask her, which is a strange way to live. ~ Joan Didion

I had at some point the epiphany that if I wanted to be a writer, maybe I should stop thinking about writing, or stop writing about writing, and actually write. ~ Matt Fraction

I just have this feeling that if it weren't for the Gloversville Free Library that I probably would not be a writer. ~ Richard Russo

I wouldn't not want to be a director and write as I wouldn't not to want to be a writer and direct movies. ~ Walter Hill

Who here wants to be a writer?' I asked. Everyone in the room raised his hand. 'Why the hell aren't you home writing?' I said, and left the stage. ~ Leon Uris

I love to write. I write everything across the board - kids' stories and novels and scripts. I actually would like to give that a go; I'd like to try to be a writer. ~ Evangeline Lilly

I always ask young writers, 'Are you certain you want to be a writer? If you're absolutely sure, then do it.' If you really want to write, writing has to take precedence over everything else, except for taking care of your loved ones. It has to be more important than any possession, more important than fame. We hear about just a few writers who get famous, but most of them don't. It's got to mean more than that. ~ Herbert Gold

My mother had no idea that her daughter would turn out to be a writer, but she would not let me go through a day of my childhood without music. ~ Virginia Euwer Wolff

I love being able to be a writer. That's what I moved to New York to be. ~ John Searles

When one chooses to be a writer, psychologically there's a reason for that because you like the isolation and you like to be by yourself and you are by nature timid. ~ Woody Allen

It's a strange irony that most people who are truly creative don't really know where their ideas come from. To be a writer, just like all crafts, is an art form. You can take evening classes in writing at the local library, where you go along every Tuesday night and read out your weekly piece, and that can serve to improve your expertise a little, but to be a Wrong Planet writer you have to first of all be an artist. The art of searching for words radiates from deep inside the writer, and I truly feel that when a true writer is sitting quietly at his desk his movements are beautifully interwoven. His breathing will even come with an effortless grace. The ability to move fluidly in his study in this manner begins with a truly intuitive knowledge, although if the truth were known, there's a little bit of insanity in the writer that does everyone an awful lot of good. ~ Karl Wiggins

Don't panic. If you write, you'll be a writer. ~ Whitney Otto

I'm not sure if I always wanted to be a writer, but I was always writing. ~ Steve Toltz

I wanted to be a writer, to write these stories that would make people see the world in a different way. But I ended up going to business school because I thought I could ultimately get to where I wanted to go faster that way. ~ Jeffrey Skoll

I've always wanted to be a writer. I've been writing since I was probably four years old - it was nonsense, but it was still my little attempts at being a storyteller. ~ Roxane Gay

You need a certain amount of nerve to be a writer. ~ Margaret Atwood

If you truly are going to be a writer, there must be somewhere within you the drive, the desire, to put pen to paper, fingers to keyboard, and actually write. ~ Kaye Dacus