Quotes of Writers

We are a species that needs and wants to understand who we are. Sheep lice do not seem to share this longing, which is one reason why they write so little. - Anne Lamott

I am irritated by my own writing. I am like a violinist whose ear is true, but whose fingers refuse to reproduce precisely the sound he hears within. - Gustave Flaubert

Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards. - Robert A. Heinlein

The quality which makes man want to write and be read is essentially a desire for self-exposure and masochism. Like one of those guys who has a compulsion to take his thing out and show it on the street. - James Jones

A writer is a person for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people. - Thomas Mann

A blank piece of paper is God's way of telling us how hard it to be God. - Sidney Sheldon

There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein. - Red Smith

Writing is so difficult that I feel that writers, having had their hell on earth, will escape all punishment hereafter. - Jessamyn West

I was working on the proof of one of my poems all the morning, and took out a comma. In the afternoon I put it back again. - Oscar Wilde

A writer never has a vacation. For a writer life consists of either writing or thinking about writing. - Eugene Ionesco

I just sit at a typewriter and curse a bit. - P. G. Wodehouse ...after being asked about his writing technique.

A writer doesn't solve problems. He allows them to emerge. - Friedrich Dürrenmatt

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put foundations under them. - Henry David Thoreau

Be like a duck, my mother used to tell me. Remain calm on the surface and paddle like hell underneath. - Michael Caine

When in doubt, have a man come through the door with a gun in his hand. - Raymond Chandler

The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shock-proof shit detector. - Ernst Hemingway

My most important piece of advice to all you would-be writers: when you write, try to leave out all the parts readers skip. - Elmore Leonard

If you think you're boring your audience, go slower not faster. - Gustav Mahler

When in doubt, blow something up. - J. Michael Straczynski

If you really want to hurt your parents and you don't have nerve enough to be homosexual, the least you can do is go into the arts. - Kurt Vonnegut

Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal. - T. S. Eliot

All good ideas arrive by chance. - Max Ernst

I hated school. I don't trust anybody who looks back on the years from 14 to 18 with any enjoyment. If you liked being a teenager, there's something really wrong with you. - Stephen King

When you take stuff from one writer, it's plagiarism. But when you take it from many writers, it's research. - William Mizner

An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all. - Oscar Wilde

When you want to fool the world, tell the truth. - Otto von Bismarck

I write fiction because it's a way of making statements I can disown. - Tom Stoppard

First, find out what your hero wants. Then just follow him. - Ray Bradbury

It begins with a character, usually, and once he stands up on his feet and begins to move, all I can do is trot along behind him with a paper and pencil trying to keep up long enough to put down what he says and does. - William Faulkner

The best way to send information is to wrap it up in a person. - Robert Oppenheimer

Tension is wonderful for making people laugh. - John Cleese

All romances end in tragedy. One of the key people in a romance becomes a monster sooner or later. - David Cronenberg

I write plays because dialogue is the most respectable way of contradicting myself. - Tom Stoppard

There is no reason why good cannot triumph as often as evil. The triumph of anything is a matter of organization. If there are such things as angels, I hope that they are organized along the lines of the Mafia. - Kurt Vonnegut

Endless conflicts. Endless misunderstanding. All life is that. Great and little cannot understand one another. - H.G. Wells

All writing is a process of elimination. - Martha Albrand

There is no great writing, only great rewriting. - Justice Brandeis

Writing is 1 percent inspiration, and 99 percent elimination. - Louise Brooks

The wastepaper basket is the writer's best friend. - Isaac Bashevis Singer

Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess. - Oscar Wilde