There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.
--W. Somerset Maugham
You can't sit around and wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.
--Jack London
You know you've achieved perfection in design, not when you have nothing more to add, but when you have nothing more to take away.
--Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Success is spelled W - O - R - K
--Robert Schuller
It is by sitting down to write every morning that one becomes a writer.
--Gerald Brenan
My education was sorely neglected, yet I was passionately fond of reading.
--Mary Shelly, writing as Dr. Frankenstein
Be a scribe! Your body will be sleek, your hand will be soft....You are one who sits grandly in your house; your servants answer speedily; beer is poured copiously; all who see you rejoice in good cheer. Happy is the heart of him who writes; he is young each day.
-- Ptahotpe, c. 2350 B.C.
Imagination is the one weapon in the war against reality.
-- Jules de Gaultier
Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.
--Goethe
Always grab the reader by the throat in the first paragraph, sink your thumbs into his windpipe in the second, and hold him against the wall until the tag line.
--Paul O'Neil
We all have some talent. We could all use some more. But we should all keep writing.
-- Julie Beard
If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.
--Thoreau
Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of--but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards.
--Robert A. Heinlein
I'm afraid of coaching, of writer's classes, of writer's magazines, of books on how to write. They give me centipede trouble -- you know the yarn about the centipede who was asked how he managed all his feet? He tried to answer, stopped to think about it, and was never able to walk another step.
--Robert A. Heinlein
When talented people write well, it is generally for this reason: they're moved by a desire to touch the audience.
--Robert McKee
If I had to give young writers advice, I'd say don't listen to writers talking about writing.
--Lillian Hellman
None of us will ever accomplish anything excellent or commanding except when he listens to this whisper which is heard by him alone.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
Having harvested all the knowledge and wisdom we can from our mistakes and failures, we should put them behind us and go ahead.
--Edith Johnson
Everyone has a talent. What is rare is the courage to nurture it in solitude and to follow the talent to the dark places where it leads.
--Erica Jong
If the writer has a masterpiece within, he had better save it on paper. Otherwise, none of us will ever miss it.
--Steve Martin
Quotes about Nature | "Quotes about Life