Writing Life Quotes

When you work on a book and you have planned everything out and you are putting flesh to an idea and a surmise that before was mainly bones something funny happens. Your brain goes into an altered state where the words you write are not quite the words you want but rather the words dictated by the task at hand. ~ David Amerland

I became a physicist to understand the world, then I became a writer to try and change it. ~ Carla H. Krueger

Thankfully existing only in SMALL pockets within our discipline, is "intellectual" snobbery. It's a hushed but ugly truth that people are made to feel not worthy to be among a certain set – didn't attend the right school or don't have the requisite abbreviations to follow their name. I know what that feels like. Good thing I'm pigheaded, have a bigger vision and committed to my craft, or I would've succumbed to it long ago. That is why when I meet an emerging writer who's serious about developing their craft, I try to encourage them as much as I can. I say IGNORE the highbrow cliques and prove your mettle by growing, accepting balanced feedback and most of all, creating work that will stand the test of time. Period. ~ Sandra Sealy

So here I am writing my zombie story and my lead character decides to betray me. ~ Steven Ramirez

Collaborating on a film script involves two people sitting in a room separated by the silence of two minds working together. ~ Darlene Craviotto

Sometimes all you want to do is to keep on writing. ~ Avijeet Das

Writers, by nature, are going to be slightly more delusional than others because we're dreamers, we imagine the unlikely, that's how we create... Rather than hoping my delusion becomes a reality, I'd prefer to keep on being deluded, to dream bigger and to imagine greater. My greater worry would be becoming less delusional . ~ Rowena Wiseman

Writing is my joy, is my comfort zone, it strengthens my feeble knees and it frees my troubled heart. ~ Euginia Herlihy

Write what you want to write. That's the only advice a writer will ever need. ~ Chloe Thurlow

The secret to good writing is to use small words for big ideas, not to use big words for small ideas. ~ Oliver Markus Malloy

George Banks and all he stands for will be saved. Maybe not in life, but in imagination. Because that's what we storytellers do. We restore order with imagination. We instill hope again and again and again. ~ Walt Disney Company

My mother had died when I wrote my first book. I was twenty-seven, so it was right at the beginning of my writing life. I don't know if she had lived, if I would have done it, certainly not quite like I did. But, you can't rethink it. You wrote what you wrote, it meant something to other people, and that's your good. ~ Anne Roiphe

Concentrate on sharpening your memory and peeling your sensibility. Cut every page you write by at least one third. Stop constructing those piffling little similes of yours. Work out what it is you want to say. Then say it in the most direct and vigorous way you can. Eat meat. Drink blook. Give up your social life and don't think you can have friends. Rise in the quiet hours of the night and prick your fingertips and use the blood for ink; that will cure you of persiflage! ~ Hilary Mantel

Only my characters truly know what's going on - I just hold the pen. ~ Sandra J. Jackson

No one ever does the last thing on their list. ~ Ariel Gore

The Page awaits the Inspiration even as Inspiration roams the world of man, seeking a Page upon which to unfurl itself, body and soul, bare yet clothed in immortality if not immediacy.
And the gods said, "Let there be a Page, and many a Page," and there was a Book. And we saw that the Book was good. ~ Chila Woychik

If a book can save - redeem us from the mediocrity of the mundane - surely, there must be a God. ~ Chila Woychik

A writer writes. There are no exceptions to this reality. No excuses. Stop wasting time talking about your stories and get them on paper. ~ Christy Hall

A direct relationship exists between the caliber of the writing you read and the caliber of the writing you make. ~ Robert Benson

The serious writer was aware of a paradox at the heart of his art: his inner world, the place of the strongest stories, was infinite, but it was also embedded in – if this was possible! – an even more infinite universe of all things to write about. It was like seeing the Grand Canyon from outer space – a huge gorge that looked like a thin trickle, impossible to miss, hard to hit. ~ Marcus Speh

Some want to be writers when life permits it. There is no part-time in being a writer. It's an all-in way of living your life through words and feelings scratched out with a pen. ~ Jason E. Hodges

While writing is like a joyful release, editing is a prison where the bars are my former intentions and the abusive warden my own neuroticism. ~ Tiffany Madison

Writers are people who write. By and large, they are not happy people. They're not good at relationships. Often they're drunks. And writing - good writing - does not get easier and easier with practice. It gets harder and harder - so that eventually the writer must stall out into silence. The silence that waits for every writer and that, inevitably, if only with death, the writer must fall into is angst-ridden and terrifying - and often drives us mad. So if you're not a writer, consider yourself fortunate. ~ Samuel R. Delany

The next thing most like living one's life over again seems to be a recollection of that life, and to make that recollection as durable as possible by putting it down in writing. ~ Benjamin Franklin

A person frequently writes in order to escape madness and crushing despondency by culling moral lesson and healing growth serum from personal experiences. Akin to riders on a storm, and a dog without a bone, we only come to understand our limits by enduring suffering. Only by deliberately confronting the essential facts of life does a person come to understand humanity. Without suffering the full brunt of love, sorrow, pain, illness, death, and accepting the relentless march of time a person never comes to know anything at all regarding the wonderful mystery of life. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

When a writer dies, he becomes his books. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

As a writer, the main skill you need is curiosity. As a reader, the main tool you need is open-mindedness. ~ Gloria D. Gonsalves

I felt condemned to obscurity and to celibacy. But when one is driven by passion, one can live on almost nothing, and I was driven by passion for writing. One does not starve in modern, Western societies, and one can do without such amenities as the telephone, a car, entertainment. ~ Alain Robbe-Grillet

It's a difficult path that we tread, us Indie self-publishers, but we're not alone. How many bands practicing in their dad's garage have heard of a group from the neighbourhood who got signed by a recording company? Or how many artists who love to paint, but are not really getting anywhere with it hear of someone they went to art school with being offered an exhibition in a gallery? How many chefs who love to get creative around food hear of someone else who's just landed a job with Marco Pierre White?
There's no difference between us and them. There is, however, a huge difference in how everyone else perceives the writer. And there's a huge difference between all of us – the writers, the musicians, the composers, the chefs, the dance choreographers and to a certain extent the tradesmen - and the rest of society in that no one understands us. It's a wretched dream to hope that our creativity gets recognised while our family thinks we're wasting our time when the lawn needs mowing, the deck needs painting and the bedroom needs decorating.
It's acceptable to go into the garage to tinker about with a motorbike, but it's a waste of a good Sunday afternoon if you go into the garage and practice your guitar, or sit in your study attempting to capture words that have been floating around your brain forever. ~ Karl Wiggins

I began my writing life as a poet, so poetry has always been fundamental. I evolved from poetry to journalism to stories to novels. But poetry was always there. ~ Ben Okri

My mind is a forest fire. ~ Christina Strigas

I have always been considered a bit of an outsider, and a general failure at everything I put my hand towards. In fact, you might even go so far as to say that I'm a lesser being of great insignificance! I state this because, when writing a story, you should always start the first line off with at least one basic truth.
-First lines from the novel Sukiyaki ~ Andrew James Pritchard

Whether you're conducting phone interviews or simply need to hear yourself think, privacy is an extremely important variable in the writing life. ~ Sage Cohen

May my mind be clear and my heart pure. ~ Joanie Schirm

I don't think writers need to be insane. Just crazy. ~ Rayne Hall

Poems must, of course, be written in emotional freedom. Moreover, poems are not language but the content of the language. ~ Mary Oliver

I've always felt a vague sense of guilt that I search for plunder and inspiration in every book or poem or story I pick up. Other people's books are treasures when stories emerge in molten ingots that a writer can shape to fit his or her own talents. Magical theft has always played an important part of my own writer's imagination. ~ Pat Conroy

I began to meditate upon the writer's life. It is full of tribulation. First he must endure poverty and the world's indifference; then, having achieved a measure of success, he must submit to a good grace of its hazards...But he has one compensation, Whenever he has anything on his mind, whether it be a harassing reflection, grief at the death of a friend, unrequited love, wounded pride, anger at the treachery of someone to whom he has shown kindness, in short any emotion or any perplexing thought, he has only to put it down in black and white, using it as a theme of a story or the decoration of an essay, to forget all about it. He is the only free man. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

Grab a pen and your turf will have no limits. ~ Nadun Lokuliyanage

Writing is supposed to be difficult, agonizing, a dreadful exercise, a terrible occupation. ~ Ray Bradbury

Write freely and as rapidly as possible and throw the whole thing on paper. Never correct or rewrite until the whole thing is down. Rewrite in process is usually found to be an excuse for not going on. It also interferes with flow and rhythm which can only come from a kind of unconscious association with the material ... .. ~ John Steinbeck

People should think that being a writer is cool. Even if you're just a starving writer. Besides, most great writers were starving at one point or another. It comes with the title. ~ Zack Love

Write a daily gratitude. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

A dream is like a first draft.
No one will ever see it but you. ~ T.N. Suarez

New York is perfect. Just the way it is. In all its imperfection. ~ Christy Hall

But the writing life, it turned out, was difficult. It wasn't like you could sit down and flip a switch and crank on the ventilation system. Sometimes it didn't work, and sometimes you couldn't even find the switch. ~ Jeanne Marie Laskas

It's hell writing and it's hell not writing. The only tolerable state is having just written. ~ Robert Hass

Pivotal to a happy writing life is a practice of daily personal writing. ~ Julia Cameron

Autobiographical writing acts as a timeless testament to each person's epic record of adventure, heartache, road to perdition, and achievement of a spiritual life devoid of the consternation, trepidation, foreboding fear, and inconsolably hankering for what is unattainable for humankind. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

Writing is part of life, but it is not part of the ordinary busyness of life. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

Writing the story of your own life is a bit like drilling your own teeth. ~ Gloria Swanson

Shigure: G'morning.
Tohru: Good morning!
Yuki: Um, Shigure, it's night. Why don't you get a normal sleep pattern?
Shigure: I became an author so I wouldn't have to. ~ Natsuki Takaya

Only a writer holds conversations between people that don't exist. We don't talk to ourselves. We talk to people we created from nothing.
#FromTheInternet #AuthorUnknown ~ Unknown

When writing a book what is more important? Grammar and spelling or telling a great story? I know which I would choose. ~ Samuel Colbran

MFA in a Box is designed to help you to find the courage to put truth into words and to understand that writing is a life-and-death endeavor - but that nothing about a life-and-death endeavor keeps it from being laugh-out-loud funny. ~ John Rember

At least I understood that writing was this: an impulse to share with other people a feeling or truth that I myself had. Not to preach to them, but to give it to them if they cared to hear it. ~ Brenda Ueland

A key to a long, productive writing life is finding ways to support that life, emotionally and existentially. ~ Eric Maisel

All my children inspire me in life, and that always comes out in the writing. ~ Paul Weller

When reading a book, one hopes it doesn't turn into a painful process. Predictable is bad enough. Laborious is acceptable if the labor produces fruit. But with painfully bad writing, all one can do is grab a hatchet, slice off its head, and bury it. ~ Chila Woychik

Come now, I was not about to let that thing eat you. ~ Stacy Buck

Writing is like a religion to those who don't practise, an act of faith for those who do. ~ Chloe Thurlow

When I talk about a writing life, I'm talking about a life in which writing is the dominant response to living. ~ Julia Cameron

Whenever I have endured or accomplished some difficult task
such as watching television, going out socially or sleeping
I always look forward to rewarding myself with the small pleasure of getting back to my typewriter and writing something. ~ Isaac Asimov

Until you begin to write, then you see wonders. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

I am with fire between my teeth and still nothing but my blank page. ~ Monique Wittig

As an outsider I was free to pick my own literary traditions, to build my own system of literary values. ~ Dubravka Ugresic

If your written words become literal nails to crucify you with, then you have done your job well. You provoked a reaction, whether it is positive or negative is irrelevant. Writing that evokes no reaction is a body without a soul. ~ Stewart Stafford

Who thought up the dumb idea to arrange the memoir section in the bookstore by subject? ~ Slash Coleman

People cannot escape the looming specter of a deathwatch and the imposing emptiness that comes with the termination of their existence. People resist going silently into the night. We seek to howl at the moon and make known our search for a diagrammatic overture that voices our unquantifiable existence. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

Did you think you could have the good without the evil? Did you think you could have the joy without the sorrow? ... I have been thinking much about pain. How could I help it? ... Sooner or later, regardless of the wit of man, we have pain to face; a reality; a final inescapable, immutable fact of life. What poor souls, if we have then no philosophy to face it with! This pain will not last; it never has lasted. I'll think about what I am going to write tomorrow-not about me, not about my body. ~ Ray Stannard Baker

A writer's tools are desperation, humiliation, loneliness, love, affection, heartache, happiness, glee, defeat, victory, setbacks, and a desire for personal redemption. People with the experience to know of such things relate that in order to write one must suffer an alleyway of anguish, and experience an array of physical and emotional pain. More than anything else, emotional growth, and writing are each reflective of the immeasurable gain accomplished through studious reflection. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

People who make snide comments to authors like "anyone can write a book" or "well, you did it, so obviously I can/it can't be that hard" or poke at a book because it's "romance" or "genre fiction" and act like that somehow makes it substandard because they don't read it ... well, ok, go ahead. Write a bestseller. Don't forget to go through the correct edit process. We'll wait. ~ Michelle M. Pillow

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

It was dawning on me how uphill a poet's path was, and I confessed to her that if I had to be the choice between being happy or being a poet, I'd choose to be happy. ~ Mary Karr

Research is a wonderful word for writers. It serves as excuse for EVERYTHING ~ Rayne Hall

The divine thoughts comes from God, we are only vessel for its transmission. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

The inspired words, which flush my mind, come from a higher power! ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

I've never yet run out of ideas what to write about ... only out of time to write it in. ~ Rayne Hall

He cut away the insignificant and incidental. Those bits were tossed
away from the juicy core pieces. He slid the excess tissue and tendons away and reorganized the good bits on his plate. Those pieces were translated into words and catchy phrases and assembled like a new life. ~ Jeffry R. Halverson

..here's the editor's prescription, writer: 1000 words daily until next checkup. ~ Rob Bignell, Editor

However, just like any line of work, writing is a negotiation, and creative control is as elusive as financial stability. I discovered that writing could be like cleaning carpets or working in a factory: just a meaningless production of words. ~ Alice Driver

Athletes take care of their bodies. Writers must similarly take care of the sensibility that houses the possibility of poems. There is nourishment in books, other art, history, philosophies - in holiness and in mirth. It is in honest hands-on labor also; I don't mean to indicate
a preference for the scholarly life. And it is in the green world - among people, and animals, and trees for that matter, if one genuinely cares about trees. ~ Mary Oliver

I'm an author. We don't want to lead. We don't need to follow. We stay home and make stuff up and write it down and send it out into the world, and get inside people's heads. Perhaps we change the world and perhaps we don't. We never know. We just make stuff up. ~ Neil Gaiman

America takes her writers too seriously. ~ Kingsley Amis

I read your diary. I KNOW. ~ Mary Papas

My life is, in a sense, trash. My life is only that of which the residue is my writing. ~ John Updike

I don't think you can reach your potential as a writer unless you're a passionate reader, AND read passionately. ~ Michelle D. Kwasney

The highest kind of writing - which must not be confused with
the most ambitious kind ... belongs to the realm of grace. Talent is
part of it, certainly; a thorough understanding of the secret laws,
absolutely. But finding the subject and theme which is in perfect
harmony with your deepest nature, your forgotten selves, your hidden
dreams, and the full unresonated essence of your life - now that
cannot be reached through searching, nor can it be stumbled upon
through ambition. That sort of serendipity comes upon you on a
lucky day. It may emerge even out of misfortune or defeat. You may
happen upon it without realising that this is the work through
which your whole life will sing. We should always be ready. We
should always be humble. Creativity should always be a form of
prayer. ~ Ben Okri

Fear is the major cargo that American writers must stow away when the writing life calls them into its carefully chosen ranks. ~ Pat Conroy

I felt that not only in my book but in novels in general there was something that truly agitated me, a bare and throbbing heart ... But was that what I wanted? To write, to write with purpose, to write better than I had already? And to study the stories of the past and the present to understand how they worked, and to learn, learn everything about the world with the sole purpose of constructing living hearts ... ~ Elena Ferrante

Your first written sentence is the foundation of all of your dreams. ~ Rob Bignell, Editor

Here's one prophecy the writer can make - you'll never be rich and you'll probably be poor. ~ Chloe Thurlow

Everyone, except a writer, thinks writing is easy.
Writing is tough. Being a disciplined writer is tougher. ~ Tarang Sinha

As I've moved through life, I've found that I like things to be as casual and as spontaneous as possible when writing. ~ Les Claypool

What nobody tells you is that spending an entire day being paid to do something you love is sometimes a lot less fun than spending an entire day doing something you love for free. ~ Allison K. Williams

To strive in life; we must either read or write a story. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

The writing life is a secret life, wither we admit it or not. ~ Jayne Anne Phillips

In America, the race goes to the loud, the solemn, the hustler. If you think you're a great writer, you must say that you are. ~ Gore Vidal

Journalism, to me, is just another drug – a free ride to scenes I'd probably miss if I stayed straight. But I'm neither a chemist nor an editor; all I do is take the pill or the assignment and see what happens. Now and then I get a bad trip, but experience has made me more careful about what I buy... so if you have a good pill I'm open; I'll try almost anything that hasn't bitten me in the past. ~ Hunter S. Thompson

Nothing makes you feel smaller than New York City ... ~ Christy Hall