Writing Philosophy Quotes

Regardless if a person likes my book I've earned the title: An American Writer. ~ Jonathan Heatt

I enjoy writing historical fiction because it allows me to live more lives than just this one. ~ Karen A. Chase

Writing is a series of verbal suggestions designed to provoke a psychological reaction and an aesthetic experience. ~ Stewart Stafford

Writing is a wonderful voyage of discovery. So sit down and write, and see where your mind can take you ... ~ Sarah Jane Avory

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

Authors are sick people. ~ Sarah M. Eden

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

Talking aloud to oneself is usually indicative of a mental malady. Self-talk is also the stock in trade of an essay writer. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

I see there is a good deal of grandiloquence in my book - my friends and foes have told me. I think it must be true, for there is a good deal of grandiloquence in me - and in nature also: I saw a sunset last evening that was a gross imposition upon modesty. ~ Max Ehrmann

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'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

If your writing fails to move the emotional needle, you are not reaching your readers. ~ Jack R. Cotner

Writers don't suffer from insanity, they depend upon it! ~ Avijeet Das

Write your story before it dies one single breath at time. Nobody cares if is the truth as long as it really happened. ~ Brenda Sutton Rose

Dedicating a writing session to someone is like sending a prayer for them out into the world. I will never know if my writing, my dedication to them, my prayer for them made any difference in their lives. But I know it makes a difference in mine. ~ Elizabeth Rusch

When I had my girls, I knew what magic felt like for the first time. I had created people who didn't exist before. Now I write for the same reason. Creating people and their life's stories through my writing is as close to magic as I'll ever get again. ~ Dori Ann Dupre

We write every day, we fight every day, we think and scheme and dream a little dream every day. manuscripts pile up in the kitchen sink, run-on sentences dangle around our necks. we plant purple prose in our gardens and snip the adverbs only to thread them in our hair. we write with no guarantees, no certainties, no promises of what might come and we do it anyway. this is who we are. ~ Tahereh Mafi

If something unusual is what you really see and really feel, and if that's what does happen to you in your real life, how is THAT called FICTION? One simple reason... that it's the only way the society would agree to call it "normal," based on the current level of development of their mentality. ~ Sahara Sanders

Fiction is a solution, the best solution, to the problem of existential solitude. ~ Jonathan Franzen

The muse is fickle; ergo, when she knocks, ANSWER! It may take a while, but trust me, she WILL knock. In the meantime, keep your ear pressed firmly to the door. ~ Quentin R. Bufogle

A writer feels happy when the words connect with the reader's heart. ~ Avijeet Das

Keep working. Keep trying. Keep believing. You still might not make it, but at least you gave it your best shot. If you don't have calluses on your soul, this isn't for you. Take up knitting instead. ~ David Eddings

Writing is work with a purpose. Writers all throughout history labored to discover a spiritual and life-affirming means to live and attempted to share their faithful or pessimistic vision with other people. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

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

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

Words are not cubicles for truth telling. Words do not allow us to touch the face of God or define the contours of the soul. Words are imprecise and cannot capture all aspects of reality or replicate all facets of a person's emotional mélange. Language allows for limited explorations of reality and minimal probing of the human mind. I accept that the only possible relation between language and the world is the image displayed in each person's head by the picture invoking ability of language. Select word pictures might accurately portray what I perceive and still be vague, blatantly inaccurate, completely meaningless, misleading, distorted, or incomprehensible in other persons' minds. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

Try as we might, we write what we write ~ B.G. Thurston

Writing became a tool I used to digest my life and understand, finally, the grace, the gratitude I could feel, not because everything was hunky-dory, but because we can use everything we are. ~ Natalie Goldberg

I'm not a writer. Ernest Hemingway was a writer. I just have a vivid imagination and type 90 WPM. ~ Tiffany Madison

Writing starts with living. ~ L.L. Barkat

I am a commercial writer and I'm proud of that. I am writing things to be put in the bookstore next month. I think it is a mistake to try to write for the ages. ~ Michael McDowell

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

Imagination, curiosity, passion, creativity these are the words that move me! ~ Samuel Colbran

Writing isn't about making money, getting famous, or making friends. It's about doing what you love the best you know how. It's about making a heart pound in fear, shrink from rage, weep with understanding, or soar with excitement. It's about making worlds and living in them deeply enough someone else can join you there. It's about life changed to words, words changed to life, over and over and over again. It's about giving. ~ Billie Sue Mosiman

You may find many contradictory statements and philosophies within my writings. However, to this I will say such is life, for life is full of contradictions. ~ Bryant H. McGill

The pen is mightier than the sword - It's also easier to write with! ~ Benny Hill

I grew up reading 'The Fountainhead' and I can never ever get enough of this book. Most of the sentences are tattooed to my Soul. ~ Avijeet Das

Revenge. Justice. Love. They are the three stories that all other stories are made up of. It's the trifecta. ~ April Genevieve Tucholke

There's still too much energy leftover at this tomb-desk, on Broadway, when I am semi-asleep at night in our bedroom, struggling to get a good night's rest. There's an overflow of loin energy. It spills out from my pores as if I were a cracked drum of reacting chemicals. I need to work to expend this excess energy in words, stories and books ... My mind is a body that's a mind. ~ Sergio Troncoso

The clouds made their own images. Looking at them I could fill in the pages. ~ Suyasha Subedi

As a form of body language, when the mind is receptive to the sensory experience, writing speaks the truth about all thoughts and feelings. Now I don't want to be misunderstood here because this isn't a special talent or skill. It's present in all of us. The trick is to discover it, cultivate it and translate it from an internal state to an expressive sensuality. It is truly a creative impulse that unconsciously expresses emotions and can also arouse emotion in the person reading the book. The beauty and harmony of the writer never gets old and there are as many new things to learn each day, as there are varieties of adjectives, nouns and verbs in the world. It is the ultimate way to communicate with your reader. ~ Karl Wiggins

I think what makes good writing is intimacy - putting the reader inside the character's head. Many books are bad because they're merely guidebooks for sightseers. ~ Raymond Bolton

I don't see why escapist literature shouldn't also be a work of art. ~ P.D. James

Every serious novel is, beyond its immediate thematic preoccupations, a discussion of the craft, a conquest of the form, a conflict with its difficulties and a pursuit of its felicities and beauty. ~ Ralph Ellison

I believe you can consider yourself a successful prose writer when the number of words you put on a page each day is equal to, or greater than, the number of milligrams of mind-altering chemicals you ingest in that day. (Note: this rule does not apply to poets who write in the short-form. You, my boys and girls, are free as birds!) ~ Roman Payne

Writers are like supreme beings. We can create worlds in a matter of days and we can destroy them just as fast. ~ Linda Nelson

When a person sets out to learn from others and not to teach others he becomes a true writer. ~ Carla H. Krueger

To master magical realism, one must make the real seem unreal but, more importantly, make the unreal seem real. ~ Kevin Ansbro

Creativity takes courage. It takes courage to bare your soul for the world. It's like taking off your armor, although you know people have pointy sticks that they love to jab into soft flesh. ~ Oliver Markus Malloy

A writer's voice emanates from their interest and compulsions that absorbs them completely. Only by fully committing himself or herself to a pet subject or issue can the writer develop a thematic tone that speaks to other people with authority and serenity. The quality of their literary voice is the crucial part of the writer's legitimacy, and their authenticity cannot come from mimicking other writers' style, but must evolve naturally from their inner sanctity and must flow effusively from an inner necessity. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

You start with the unfathomable and you end with the unfathomable. ~ Ari Aster

To be a good writer, you not only have to write a great deal but you have to care. You do not have to have a complicated moral philosophy. But a writer always tries, I think, to be a part of a solution, to understand a little about life and to pass this on. ~ Anne Lamott

Discipline allows magic. To be a writer is to be the very best of assassins. You do not sit down and write every day to force the Muse to show up. You get into the habit of writing every day so that when she shows up, you have the maximum chance of catching her, bashing her on the head, and squeezing every last drop out of that bitch. ~ Lili St. Crow

Fiction gives us a reach into the lives of individuals that would otherwise be but a closed door. If we are gifted with a desire to tell tales, then we should tell them ... if only to reach but a few. ~ James D. Maxon

Poetic license is not a license to scribe recklessly. ~ C. Kennedy

A goal is a written plan.
Write your dreams and visions. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

The arrogance that says analysing the relationship between reasons and causes is more important than writing a philosophy of shyness or sadness or friendship drives me nuts. I can't accept that. ~ Alain De Botton

I want to question societal norms, encourage people to think in new ways. ~ Carla H. Krueger

I never waited for my Irish Cream coffee to be the right temperature, with a storm happening outside and my fireplace crackling ... I wrote every day, at home, in the office, whether I felt like it or not, I just did it. ~ Stephen J. Cannell

To produce new works a writer will use a kind of sixth sense as well as the logical process. He'll enjoy playing with words, and that'll help his brain to relax and produce better ideas. His study is where he discovers order and finds hidden meanings in the words. He'll enjoy expanding the boundaries of what is feasible, and is possibly motivated more by the writing itself than by the hard cash that is the reward for writing. ~ Karl Wiggins

Indeed, when you write, the point isn't to make your reader understand. The point is to make him or her feel. ~ Scott Edelstein

(In reply to the question, 'Would you like some suggestions for a plot for your next book?')
There are three problems with getting plot suggestions from other people. The first is that ideas are the easy part of writing; finding the time and energy to get them down on paper is the hard part. I have plenty of ideas already. Which brings me to the second problem: the ideas that excite you, the ones you think would make a terrific book, are not necessarily the same ideas that excite me. And if a writer isn't excited about an idea, she generally doesn't turn out a terrific book, even if the idea is terrific. And the third problem with my using your suggestions is that, theoretically, you could sue me if I did, and that tends to make publishers nervous, which makes it hard to sell a book. So thank you, but no. ~ Patricia C. Wrede

In the minds of some people, writing is one thing, but thinking is quite another. If they define writing as spelling, the production of sentences with random meanings, and punctuation, then they might have a case. But who would accept such a definition? Writing is the production of meaning. Writing is thinking. ~ George Hillocks Jr.

I wonder if I'll meet one person that knows enough people that can get me recognized as a writer. Oh I already have he lives in my mirror. ~ Stanley Victor Paskavich

It's what we don't say that weighs the most. ~ Abhysheq Shukla

A real piece of writing is one in which the writer has tried to enrich not only the book, but also his understanding of the words. The words themselves have to be open to new ideas and suggestions, and the writer himself must have the audacity to attempt new things and to risk failure ~ Karl Wiggins

Storytelling entails weaving a narrative out of the disturbing, strange, inspirational, and unremarkable detritus of life. By picking among the litter of our personal experiences to select evocative anecdotes to weave into a narrative format, we reveal which of life's legendary offerings prove the most sublime to us. Acts of omission are momentous. Our narration of personal sketches divulge what factoids inspire us or do not stir us into action, or contain obdurate truths that prove virtually impossible to crack. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

Every day we live, we are writing our own secret book. ~ Chrys Fey

Writing is taking human experience and wrapping it up into a package of your own ideas and hoping someone will pull the bow smiling on top to see what's hiding inside. ~ Roderick Vincent

And I realised why I have become a poet. It's because I can feel the pain and love of people. I can feel the innermost feelings of people. The tenderness of hurt souls. And I want to heal the world by my words. ~ Avijeet Das

A writer is meant to make the readers feel and see things that they may not feel or see. A writer is meant to change the thought process of the society! To make the majority of people realise their true potential. A writer is meant to change the perceptions of society. To make the majority of people change their thought process. To make the readers look at a mountain and see the potential of human consciousness. The consciousness that one day a human being has the potential to climb up that mountain. To make the readers look at the ocean and see the potential of human cconsciousness. The consciousness that one day a human being can dive into the farthest depths of that ocean! ~ Avijeet Das

Writing is a form of intense thinking that takes a person on a journey into previously uncharted territory of the writer's mind. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

I am the philosophy before any philosopher. ~ J. Limbu

If you were to stare at this box of matches, you could extract entire worlds out of it. If you search for tastes in a book, you will certainly find them because it was said: seek and ye shall find. But a critic should not rifle, search. Let him sit back with folded arms, waiting for the book to find him. Talents should not be sought with a microscope, a talent should let people know about itself by striking at all the bells. ~ Witold Gombrowicz

One hasn't become a writer until one has distilled writing into
a habit, and that habit has been forced into an obsession.
Writing has to be an obsession. It has to be something as organic,
physiological and psychological as speaking or sleeping or eating. ~ Niyi Osundare

I believe that art is the highest expression of the human spirit. ~ I believe that we yearn to transcend the merely finite and ephemeral; to participate in something mysterious and communal called "culture" – and that this yearning is as strong in our species as the yearning to reproduce the species. ~ Through the local or regional, through our individual voices, we work to create art that will speak to others who know nothing of us. In our very obliqueness to one another, an unexpected intimacy is born. ~ Joyce Carol Oates

One of the notebooks was for musings and pep talks. ... The other notebooks were for writing out the novel the way authors had done for centuries. ~ Gail Godwin

Thus the writing of ethnography becomes a magical act, no less than the creation of a ritual, the making of a spell, or the manufacture of a sacred object: the ethnographer is by definition a magician. ~ Sabina Magliocco

Essayist dabble with the ache for what was lost, bemoan the slippage of time, express the desire to recapture the passage of time, exhibit reluctant acceptance for the way things are, celebrate the beautiful and the sublime, and issue a silent prayer for the mere fact that the author survived the conflicts of today and shall eyewitness another dawn. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

Words are the writer's hocus-pocus, our dark arts and our deception. They're our charm and our temptation. Sometimes the writer overindulges himself and it gets out of hand, but that's how we like it, it's how we've ghosted some of our best creations. ~ Karl Wiggins

I'm proud to be a writer. I'm doing the job all my heroes did. ~ Carla H. Krueger

There is nothing to writing. You nourish your creativity for months and years until you release your baby out into the world. ~ Lydia Larue

Beautiful prose is a floundering fish if it doesn't have a story to swim in. ~ Kevin Ansbro

You can be a good painter if you study Cézanne's vision. Whoever dares to copy Van Gogh falls inevitably into the hell of imitators. For this painter didn't care about masterpieces, or even good paintings... but about what is beyond all painting, all art. ~ Zbigniew Herbert

It's a struggle to become the man that you want to be. It's harder than you want, it's longer than you want and it takes more out of you than...than you expect that it should. ~ Abhysheq Shukla

Writing is a method to stanch a person's deepest lacerations. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

I conceive that the right way to write a story for boys is to write so that it will not only interest boys but strongly interest any man who has ever been a boy. That immensely enlarges the audience. ~ Mark Twain

If you don't make time for writing, writing won't make time for you. ~ Sandra Elaine Scott

Creating any type of art is an actual experience inasmuch as it affects the artist's life. The experience of writing not only merges disparate parts of the mind, this expressive experience affects the evolution of the self. Writing is not about the process of creating a piece of literature; rather, writing is an artistic, transformative experience. All opposite forces in human nature are reconciled in the unity of consciousness, which is why the most fully developed human being strives to makes their unconsciousness thoughts, feelings, and prejudices conscious through acts of contemplation. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

Because here's the thing: No matter how much one tells stories of magical beasts or impossible worlds, in the end, it is always the world of here and now one is writing about. The better one understands that world, the more powerful the stories will be. ~ Steven Brust

When I write, I write obsessively. I try to pace myself, but some fires are too hot to put out. ~ Carla H. Krueger

When I pour out my hurt and sadness into the typewriter do I then begin to realize that I have created poetry! ~ Avijeet Das

If your passion doesn't consume you, then it ain't your passion. ~ Rupert Fox

Non-fiction can distort; facts can be realigned. But fiction never lies. ~ V.S. Naipaul

Write to evolve and you'll evolve to write. ~ Katina Ferguson

I cannot in good conscience leave the dear reader hanging with so much baggage as to cause depression. ~ Daniel Rundquist

When I told my teachers I wanted to be a writer, alot of them encouraged me to lower my expectations and to be more realistic. So I rode away on my magical, winged horse, spraying faerie dust behind me, and laughing manically as I went. ~ M.E. Vaughan

You know, the immortality of the soul, free will and all that
it's all very amusing to talk about up to the age of twenty-two, but not after that. Then one ought to be giving one's mind to having fun without catching the pox, arranging one's life as comfortably as possible, having a few decent drawings on the wall, and above all writing well. That's the important thing: well-made sentences ... and then a few metaphors. Yes, a few metaphors. They embellish a man's existence. ~ Theophile Gautier

As a matter of writing philosophy, if there is one, I try not to ever plot a story. I try to write it from the character's point of view and see where it goes. ~ Andre Dubus III

When writing a comprehensive self-investigatory scroll, the writer attempts to weave a network of strands capable of enmeshing all sizes of ideas including those with no obvious interconnection. The writer must also trace all lingering thoughts to their original source in personal experiences, and revaluate each exquisite nuance notched into a person's conscious mind including acts of depravity, violence, and the almost imperceptible intrusions of grace. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster