Tess Quinn

Quotes for Writers

As you can probably tell by now, I love quotes. Here are some quotes about writing, for writers, etc. Most of them are supplied by my favorite quote website: NT.Armstrong http://www.nt.armstrong.edu/advice.htm



Quotes for writers from other writers:

If I had to give young writers advice, I’d say don’t listen to writers talking about writing.
-Lillian Hellman



There is no rule on how to write. Sometimes it comes easily and perfectly: sometimes it’s like drilling rock and then blasting it out with charges.
– Ernest Hemingway



Many people hear voices when no one is there. Some of them are called mad and are shut up in rooms where they stare at the walls all day. Others are called writers and they do pretty much the same thing.
– Meg Chittenden



What obsesses a writer starting out on a lifetime’s work is the panic-stricken search for a voice of his own.
– John Mortimer



Having been unpopular in high school is not just cause for book publications.
-Fran Lebowitz



How do I know what I think, until I see what I say?
-W.H. Auden



You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.
– Jack London



There’s nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open up a vein.
– Walter Smith



Read, read, read. Read everything- trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You’ll absorb it. Then write. If it is good, you’ll find out. If it’s not, throw it out the window.
-William Faulkner



Half my life is an act of revision.
-John Irving



The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shock-proof shit detector. This is the writer’s radar and all good writers have it.
– Ernest Hemingway



The first draft of anything is shit.
- Ernest Hemingway



I find that I can criticize my composition best when I stand at a little distance from it–when I do not see it, for instance.
– Henry David Thoreau



I’m not a very good writer, but I’m an excellent rewriter.
-James Michener



Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.
– Scott Adams



Substitute “damn” every time you’re inclined to write “very”; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.
– Mark Twain



We can’t be as good as we’d want to, so the question then becomes, how do we cope with our own badness?
- Nick Hornby