Inspiring Writing Quotes

I write to be the characters that I am not. ~ Joss Whedon

Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on. ~ Louis L'Amour

The writer must believe that what he is doing is the most important thing in the world. And he must hold onto this illusion, even though he knows it's not true. ~ John Steinbeck

When you don't have the pressure of pleasing someone else and do something because you love doing it, that's when the best works are born. ~ Vishwas Mudagal

Some who have read the book, or at any rate have reviewed it, have found it boring, absurd, or contemptible, and I have no cause to complain, since I have similar opinions of their works, or of the kinds of writing that they evidently prefer. ~ J.R.R. Tolkien

Let others determine your worth and you're already lost, because no one wants people worth more than themselves. ~ Peter V. Brett

What I do believe is that there is always a relationship between writing and reading, a constant interplay between the writer on the one hand and the reader on the other. ~ Guillermo Cabrera Infante

People who won't sign the taxpayer protection pledge, people who won't sign the property-rights protection pledge, people who won't sign the state-sovereignty pledge, who won't put their beliefs in writing, who won't endorse the Freedom Agenda, we should be asking them some very very hard questions. Very hard questions. Because you know what, they get away with it. We hear what goes on in closed doors in Olympia. We hear them say the opposite of what they say publicly. ~ Matt Shea

You have no responsibility to live up to what other people think you ought to accomplish. I have no responsibility to be like they expect me to be. It's their mistake, not my failing. ~ Richard Feynman

If critics say your work stinks it's because they want it to stink and they can make it stink by scaring you into conformity with their comfortable little standards. Standards so low that they can no longer be considered "dangerous" but set in place in their compartmental understandings. ~ Jack Kerouac

Some critics will write 'Maya Angelou is a natural writer' - which is right after being a natural heart surgeon. ~ Maya Angelou

I write to give myself strength. I write to be the characters that I am not. I write to explore all the things I'm afraid of. ~ Joss Whedon

If you show someone something you've written, you give them a sharpened stake, lie down in your coffin, and say, 'When you're ready'. ~ David Mitchell

One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple. ~ Jack Kerouac

as a child
there was either
books
or
pain.
i chose books.

-how i became a writer ~ Nayyirah Waheed

My writing legacy would be my true depiction of life; exploring the entire colorful spectrum of people, both good and bad, capturing it in words and exposing it to all cultures in a respectful manner - In a way that would stand the test of time. ~ Diane Martin

The only person there was little Sipho Fondini from Standard Six, writing on the wall: "Liberation first, then education." He saw me and called out: "Is the spelling right, Mr M?" And he meant it! The young eyes in that smoke-stained little face were terribly serious. Somewhere else a police van raced past me crowded with children who should have also been at their desks in school. Their hands waving desperately through the bars, their voices called out: "Teacher! Teacher! Help us! Tell our mothers! Tell or fathers! ~ Athol Fugard

MURDERED The writing continued until the driver's side glass was clear, entirely swept clean by an invisible finger, until there were so many words that none of them could be read. Until it was only a window into an empty car with the memory of a burger on the passenger seat. 'Noah,' Gansey said, 'I'm so sorry.' Blue wiped away a tear. 'Me too.' Stepping forward, leaning over the hood of the car, Ronan pressed his fingers to the windshield, and while they watched, he wrote: REMEMBERED. ~ Maggie Stiefvater

A novel is not born of a single idea. The stories I've tried to write from one idea, no matter how terrific an idea, have sputtered out and died by chapter three. For me, novels have invariably come from a complex of ideas that in the beginning seemed to bear no relation to each other, but in the unconscious began mysteriously to merge and grow. Ideas for a novel are like the strong guy lines of a spider web. Without them the silken web cannot be spun. ~ Katherine Paterson

The writing is important, but the way you say the line and the pause you give it, the facial expression - all of that is very important. ~ Arnold Schwarzenegger

There's a tradition in war writing that the veteran goes over and sees the truth of war and comes back. And I'm skeptical of that. ~ Phil Klay

If you think that what you're doing is not all that important in the larger scheme of things and that you're just an insignificant creature in the whole wide world, which is full of six billion people, and that people are born and die every day and it makes no difference to future generations what you write, and that writing and reading are increasingly irrelevant activities, you'd probably never get out of bed. ~ Pankaj Mishra

Time can lessen the hurt; the empty place we have can seem smaller as other things and experiences fill our life; we can forget for periods and feel as if our loved one didn't die; we can find sense in the death and understand that perhaps this death does fit into a bigger design in the world; we can learn to remember the good and hold on to that.
But we cannot 'get over it,' because to get over it would mean we were not changed by the experience. It would mean we did not grow by the experience. It would mean that our loved one's death made no difference in our life.
There is an interesting discussion in the Talmud, an ancient Jewish writing. Those Jews had the custom of rending their garments - literally tearing their clothes - to symbolize the ripping apart that death brings. But the question was raised, after the period of mourning, could you sew the garment up and use it again? The teachers answered yes, but when you mended it, you should not tuck the edges under so it would look as if it had never been torn. This symbolized the fact that life after grief is not the same as before. The rent will show. ~ Deborah Spungen

There's nothing more intoxicating than creating something from nothing. Creating something from yourself. Professor Piper ~ Rainbow Rowell

What do you do when Mom leaves you alone like this? (Kat)
I write romance novels. (Acheron) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

The companionship of dead writers is a wonderful form of live friendship. ~ Julian Barnes

[...] She knew it a book it was not just a book. Everything had a meaning. There was an invisible web that connected the words. It was like magic ~ Ben Oliveira

I read a lot of ghost stories because I was writing a ghost story. I didn't think at all I was writing a horror or a thriller or whatever because it is about a ghost, whereas a horror film can be about aliens or things that rise out of the marsh that have no human shape. ~ Susan Hill

I have a certain pool of subject matter that I like to write about, things that interest me: politics, religion, ecology, and relationships between men and women. And that's usually what I focus on. ~ Don Henley

Comedy is serious - deadly serious. Never, never try to be funny! The actors must be serious. Only the situation must be absurd. Funny is in the writing, not in the performing. If the situation isn't absurd, no amount of joke will help. ~ Mel Brooks

We only store in memory images of value. To write about one's life is to live it twice, and the second time is both spiritual and historical. ~ Patricia Hampl

You are always naked when you start writing; you are always as if you had never written anything before; you are always a beginner. Shakespeare wrote without knowing he would become Shakespeare ~ Erica Jong

I must confess, though, that I sometimes lose interest in the characters and get much more interested in the trees and animals. I think I exercise tremendous restraint in this, but my editor says, 'Would you stop this beauty business.' And I say, 'Wait, wait until I tell you about these ants. ~ Toni Morrison

Ideas come from all over the place – a lifetime of reading and watching films and TV helps of course. I play around with thoughts of what creeps me out and hope that it will creep my reader out too. ~ Chris Priestley

They want me to write differently. Certainly I could, but I must not. God has chosen me from thousands and given me, of all people, this talent. It is to Him that I must give account. How then would I stand there before Almighty God, if I followed the others and not Him? ~ Anton Bruckner

To describe an emotion is to feel with words. To communicate a moment of existence is to bridge the eternal and the temporal with an intellectual engagement of body, soul, spirit, and mind. To write, therefore is to entangle the mysteries of the universe in a collection of words, a web of ideas, a single drop of ink on a page. ~ Charles M. Heyworth

Writing is the hardest physical work there is. ~ Tom Robbins

And writing I think is a gift that you have, the same as acting, in a way. ~ Matthew Vaughn

The story is the story is the story. ~ Heather O'Brien

Teaching methods are often inadequate for the goals faculties are trying to achieve. Important courses such as expository writing and foreign languages are frequently taught by untrained graduate students and underpaid adjunct teachers. ~ Derek Bok

Learn how to program and play lots of games. If you find yourself capable of writing a game, someday you'll be capable of writing a really good game. My dad's a writer, and when you ask him how to learn to write, he says, "write." So basically, do it and keep doing it until you get good. ~ Fred Haslam

Golden Heart finalist in the prestigious RWA writing contest. Finalist in the International Digital Awards Semi-finalist in the Best Indie Books of 2012. A featured ~ E. Ayers

The family historian must master the art of storytelling. What, after all, is truth without anecdote, history without events, explanation without narration--or yet life itself without a story? Stories are not just the wells from which we drink most deeply but at the same time the golden threads that hold and bind--Ariadne's precious string that leads us through the labyrinth that connects living present and the living past. ~ Joseph A. Amato

The test of a writer is whether you want to read him again years after he should by the rules be dated. ~ Raymond Chandler

The Christian writer will feel that in the greatest depth of vision, moral judgment will be implicit, and that when we are invited to represent the country according to survey, what we are asked to do is to separate mystery from manners and judgment from vision, in order to produce something a little more palatable to the modern temper. We are asked to form our consciences in the light of statistics, which is to establish the relative as absolute. For many this may be a convenience, since we don't live in an age of settled belief; but it cannot be a convenience, it cannot even be possible, for the writer who is a Catholic. He will feel that any long-continued service to it will produce a soggy, formless, and sentimental literature, one that will provide a sense of spiritual purpose for those who connect the spirit with romanticism and a sense of joy for those who confuse that virtue with satisfaction. The storyteller is concerned with what is; but if what is is what can be determined by survey, then the disciples of Dr. Kinsey and Dr. Gallup are sufficient for the day thereof. ~ Flannery O'Connor

Gisele Bundchen I always admired. I think she is an example for all models. If I could have just a little bit of her career would already be a happy girl. She seems to be a determined woman, a fighter, very strong. I think she is an icon of Brazilian people. Gisele is a woman who is extremely inspiring, not only in the fashion world, she also does great things for the world. ~ Rosie Huntington-Whiteley

The dilemma for women - writing after everything else was finished - has prevented women from reaching their literary potential for centuries. ~ Joan M. Drury

I don't use any fance quill pens or pads, because I can't read my own handwriting. I just use whatever computer is laying around, and start writing. ~ Mitch Albom

Success demands singleness of purpose.

You need to be doing fewer things for more effect instead of doing more things with side effects.

It is those who concentrate on but one thing at a time who advance in this world.

Passion for something leads to disproportionate time practicing or working at it. That time spent eventually translates to skill, and when skill improves, results improve. Better results generally lead to more enjoyment, and more passion and more time is invested. It can be a virtuous cycle all the way to extraordinary results.

The ONE Thing shows up time and again in the lives of the successful because it's a fundamental truth.

More than anything else, expertise tracks with hours invested.

The pursuit of mastery bears gifts.

When people look back on their lives, it is the things they have not done that generate the greatest regret...People's actions may be troublesome initially; it is their inactions that plague them most with long-term feelings of regret.

Make sure every day you do what matters most. When you know what matters most, everything makes sense. When you don't know what matters most, anything makes sense. ~ Gary Keller

Your personal writing can heal, grow, and transform your life. Give your words permission to change you. ~ Sandra Marinella

It is absurd to imagine that any child will be able to earn a living, let alone contribute to resolving our world's complex problems, without knowing how to read and write. My foundation supports the National Writing Project so that teachers can be more effective in their efforts to improve literacy for all students. ~ Isabel Allende

When I was a kid growing up in the '80s, the BBC showed those old Buster Crabbe serials like Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers. So instead of ponderous sci-fi or depressing sci-fi or dystopian sci-fi and all the things we're kind of used to, where it's always raining and it's always dark, I thought, "Wouldn't it be nice to do something that was just fun and absolutely nonstop?" Like, I love writing action, and this thing is that. It's all action. ~ Mark Millar

If all the seven stones were laid out before me now, I should shut my eyes and put my hands in my pockets. ~ J.R.R. Tolkien

I love whimsy. My mother was a word person, a real quipster. She was famous in the 1950s for being a contester in Utah: 25 words or less. My bicycle, our hi-fi ... in 1959, she won $15,000 from Remington-Rand for writing about a shaver. She was a farm girl from South Dakota. ~ Ron Carlson

I don't like to say, Oh, this is my favorite record because there was a moment that that record made me feel a certain way. The one on the radio at the present moment could be the one that's most inspiring, because it's at that second that you're aware of "the infinite everything." ~ Russell Simmons

I cook and I chat. That's what I do. I love to write recipes, but basically, if you had to put it in a nutshell, I cook and I chat. ~ Rachael Ray

It's not about the actors, though, Peter. That's the thing. It's about the writing. ~ Emily Giffin

You have to remember that writing those sorta songs is not reality, it's more like trance, dream, y'know, like dreamwork. The mythical thing can enter the creating but there's the mythical place and the real place. And there's both ... I get it between waking and sleeping. Or, when I'm doing something else. I don't sit down and think I'm gonna write about subject X or subject Y. I could be doing something and an impression comes in from outside and the song emerges out of that. It's never thought about or contrived. ~ Van Morrison

For me, I can't live without acting or drama and writing - I also run a theater company. ~ Tom Cullen

By writing books, a man turns into a universe. ~ Milan Kundera