We spend hours and hours bleeding words on paper, and some days are easier than others. I see writing quotes as a wonderful way to remind ourselves that we are not alone.
Whether you’re struggling or simply taking a break from a very productive writing session, reading inspirational quotes and the wisdom they bring always feels like drinking hot cocoa on a cold and rainy day.
I put together my favorite quotes and made them easy for you to share. Enjoy!
[tweet_dis]If you don’t have the time to read, you don’t have the time or the tools to write. – Stephen King[/tweet_dis]
[tweet_dis]If you write one story, it may be bad: if you write a hundred, you have the odds in your favor. – Edgar Rice Burroughs[/tweet_dis]
[tweet_dis]The first draft of anything is shit. – Ernest Hemingway[/tweet_dis]
[tweet_dis]It is perfectly okay to write garbage – as long as you edit brilliantly. – C.J. Cherryl[/tweet_dis]
[tweet_dis]Writing a book is like telling a joke and having to wait 2 years to know whether or not it was funny. – Alain De Botton[/tweet_dis]
[tweet_dis]The writer is an explorer. Every step is an advance into a new land. – Ralph Waldo Emerson[/tweet_dis]
[tweet_dis]Writing is its own reward – Henry Miller[/tweet_dis]
[tweet_dis]I try to create sympathy for my characters, then turn the monsters loose. – Stephen King[/tweet_dis]
[tweet_dis]Get it down. Take chances. It may be bad, but it’s the only way you can do anything really good – William Faulkner[/tweet_dis]
[tweet_dis]We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master. – Ernest Hemingway[/tweet_dis]
[tweet_dis]Great is the art of beginning, but greater is the art of ending. – Henry Wadswoth Longfellow[/tweet_dis]
[tweet_dis]The work never matches the dream of perfection the artist has to start with. – William Faulkner[/tweet_dis]
[tweet_dis]You don’t have to say everything to say something. – Beth Moore[/tweet_dis]
[tweet_dis]Write something that’s worth fighting over. Because that’s how you change things. That’s how you create art. – Jeff Goins[/tweet_dis]
[tweet_dis]The answer to all writing, to any career for that matter, is love. – Ray Bradbury[/tweet_dis]
[tweet_dis]If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people. – Virginia Woolf[/tweet_dis]
[tweet_dis]The Six Golden Rules of Writing: Read, read, read, and write, write, write. – Ernest Gaines[/tweet_dis]
[tweet_dis]I start with a question. Then try to answer it. – Mary Lee Settle[/tweet_dis]
[tweet_dis]Serious writers write, inspired or not. Over time they discover that routine is a better friend than inspiration. – Ralph Keyes[/tweet_dis]
[tweet_dis]Revision is one of the true pleasures of writing. I love the flowers of afterthought. – Bernard Malamud[/tweet_dis]
[tweet_dis]The character that lasts is an ordinary guy with some extraordinary qualities. – Raymond Chandler[/tweet_dis]
[tweet_dis]Writers live twice. – Natalie Goldberg[/tweet_dis]
[tweet_dis]I don’t think of literature as an end in itself. It’s just a way of communicating something. – Isabel Allende[/tweet_dis]
[tweet_dis]Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations. – Henry David Thoreau[/tweet_dis]
[tweet_dis]Until you know who you are you can’t write. – Salman Rushdie[/tweet_dis]
[tweet_dis]The road to hell is paved with adverbs. – Stephen King[/tweet_dis]
[tweet_dis]If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it. – Elmore Leonard[/tweet_dis]
[tweet_dis]Be courageous and try to write in a way that scares you a little. – Holly Gerth[/tweet_dis]
[tweet_dis]There is no “writer’s lifestyle.” All that matters is what you leave on the page. – Zadie Smith[/tweet_dis]
[tweet_dis]Writing is a delicious agony. – Gwendolyn Brooks[/tweet_dis]
[tweet_dis]It is better to write a bad first draft than to write no first draft at all. – Will Shetterly[/tweet_dis]
[tweet_dis]Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do. – Leonardo Da Vinci[/tweet_dis]
[tweet_dis]Not writing at all leads to nothing. – Anna Quindlen[/tweet_dis]
[tweet_dis]We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a habit. – Aristotle[/tweet_dis]
[tweet_dis]Being a writer means taking the leap from listening to saying, “Listen to me.” – Jhumpa Lahiri[/tweet_dis]
[tweet_dis]Writing – the art of communicating thoughts to the mind, through the eye – is the great invention of the world. – Abraham Lincoln[/tweet_dis]
[tweet_dis]Outlining, researching, talking to people about what you’re doing, none of that is writing. Writing is writing. – E.L. Doctorow[/tweet_dis]
[tweet_dis]The artist must possess the courageous soul that dares and defies. – Kate Chopin[/tweet_dis]
Until you know who you are you can’t write – Salman Rushdie
Perseverance is failing 19 times and succeeding the 20th. – Julie Andrews
Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.– E.L. Doctorow
If you do not hope, you will not find what is beyond your hopes. – St Clement of Alexandra
Novels begin not on the page, but in meditation and daydreaming – in thinking, not writing. – Joyce Carol Oates
It takes a heap of sense to write good nonsense. – Mark Twain
The original writer is not one who imitates nobody, but one whom nobody can imitate. – Chateaubriand
It ain’t whatcha write, it’s the way atcha write it. – Jack Kerouac
Write. Rewrite. When not writing or rewriting, read. I know of no shortcuts. – Larry L. King
It’s none of their business that you have to learn to write. Let them think you were born that way. – Ernest Hemingway
Not that the story need be long, but it will take a long while to make it short. – Henry David Thoreau
First, find out what your hero wants, then just follow him! – Ray Bradbury
Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us get up and go to work. – Stephen King
Always dream and shoot higher than you know you can do… Try to be better than yourself. – John Steinbeck
It’s never too late to be what you might have been. – George Eliot
Nobody has ever measured, not even poets, how much the heart can hold. – Zelda Fitzgerald
The only way of finding the limits of the possible is by going beyond them into the impossible. – Arthur C. Clarke
Books worth reading are worth re-reading. – Holbrook Jackson
The dearest ones of time, the strongest friends of the soul – BOOKS. – Emily Dickinson
If the book is true, it will find an audience that is meant to read it. – Wally Lamb
One sure window into a person’s soul is his reading list. – Mary B. W. Tabor
If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all. – Oscar Wilde
A real book is not one that’s read, but one that reads us. – W.H. Auden
A mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone, if it is to keep its edge. – George R. R. Martin
All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they had really happened. – Ernest Hemingway
Fiction is about stuff that’s screwed up. – Nancy Kress
Finishing a book is just like you took a child out in the back yard and shot it. – Truman Capote
Some of the quotes can be easily shared on Twitter by clicking on the little bird. I hope you enjoyed Thanksgiving and out of the food coma.
We spend hours and hours bleeding words on paper, and some days are easier than others. I see writing quotes as a wonderful way to remind ourselves that we are not alone.