A classic is classic not because it conforms to certain structural rules, or fits certain definitions (of which its author had quite probably never heard). It is classic because of a certain eternal and irrepressible freshness. — Edith Wharton

A deadline is negative inspiration. Still, it’s better than no inspiration at all. — Rita Mae Brown

A detective digs around in the garbage of people’s lives. A novelist invents people and then digs around in their garbage.
— Joe Gores

A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author. — G. K. Chesterton

A good writer always acts on the assumption that his reader is an intelligent person of good will. You never pander. You never try to control the conclusions of your readers. You present the world as you see it, as objectively as possible. If you choose the right details, and see the essence of situations in a way that perhaps others do not, the reader will understand that truth you are trying to convey. — James Lee Burke

A good writer always brings his or her unique perspective to a piece to breathe a spark of life into it. — Bruce W. Coffman

A good writer always leaves room for the next book even if it doesn’t come. — Simon Chesterman, in comments at “Tales from the Nursery“

A good writer always tells a good story. However, is telling a good story a writer’s only responsibility? I think not. When writing a work intended to be published as non-fiction, I think a writer has the responsibility to tell the truth. — Amy Daughdrill

A good writer always works at the impossible. Oh, it is a real horse’s ass business. The mountain labors and groans and strains, and the tiniest of rodents comes out. And the great foolishness of all lies in the fact that to do it at all, a writer must believe that what he is doing is the most important thing in the world. — George Plimpton in “Lonesome Animals”

A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus: 1. What am I trying to say? 2. What words will express it? 3. What image or idiom will make it clearer? 4. Is this image fresh enough to have an effect? — George Orwell

A story with a moral appended is like the bill of a mosquito. It bores you, and then injects a stinging drop to irritate your conscience. — O. Henry

All of us failed to match our dreams of perfection. So I rate us on the basis of our splendid failure to do the impossible. — William Faulkner

Always dream and shoot higher than you know you can do. Don’t bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself. — William Faulkner

Another source of sidetracking is the pursuit of someone else’s goals or recommendations for ’success.’ Writing magazines are full of sure-fire secrets and formulas, but often fail to mention that these strategies don’t work for everyone. For example, if you’ve set the goal of ‘getting up every morning to write before work,’ that may work fine — unless you happen to be a natural night person, in which case you’ll either hate those hours of writing, or hate yourself for being unable to achieve the goal you’ve set. Similarly, if you’ve been told that a good writer always keeps a journal, but yours bores you to tears, you may come to the mistaken conclusion that you aren’t a ‘real’ writer — or simply waste a lot of time in a pursuit that has no real meaning for you. At the same time, be careful about passing up opportunities just because they don’t seem immediately fulfilling. Taking a writing class, for example, may not seem exciting, but it could help you toward your long-term goals. — Moira Allen in “Setting Effective Writing Goals”

Anyone can do any amount of work, provided it isn’t the work he is supposed to be doing at that moment. — Robert Benchley

Anyone who believes you can’t change history has never tried to write his memoirs. — David Ben Gurion

As its best, SF [science fiction] is the medium in which our miserable certainty that tomorrow will be different from today in ways we can’t predict, can be transmuted to a sense of excitement and anticipation, occasionally evolving into awe. Poised between intransigent skepticism and uncritical credulity, it is par excellence the literature of the open mind. — John Brunner

As the fading light of a dying day filtered through the window blinds, Roger stood over his victim with a smoking .45, surprised at the serenity that filled him after pumping six slugs into the bloodless tyrant that mocked him day after day, and then he shuffled out of the office with one last look back at the shattered computer terminal lying there like a silicon armadillo left to rot on the information superhighway. — Larry Brill

As writers we need to crack open language. — Natalie Goldberg, in “Zen Howl”

At least half the mystery novels published violate the law that the solution, once revealed, must seem to be inevitable. — Raymond Chandler

At night, when the objective world has slunk back into its cavern and left dreamers to their own, there come inspirations and capabilities impossible at any less magical and quiet hour. No one knows whether or not he is a writer unless he has tried writing at night. — H. P. Lovecraft

Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self. — Cyril Connolly

But don’t be afraid to critique something, even if it’s ‘outside your genre.’ There are certain things that are important to ALL types of fiction, and any good writer/critiquer should be able to pick them out. I get some of my best critiques from people who ‘never read science fiction.’ — - Joan Shapiro, via Crayne.com

But words are things, and a small drop of ink, / Falling, like dew, upon a thought, produces / That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think. — Lord Byron

Concern over criticism clogs creativity. — Duane Alan Hahn

Creativity comes from trust. Trust your instincts. And never hope more than you work. — Rita Mae Brown

Creativity is … seeing something that doesn’t exist already. You need to find out how you can bring it into being and that way be a playmate with God. — Michele Shea

Creativity is a lot like looking at the world through a kaleidoscope. You look at a set of elements, the same ones everyone else sees, but then reassemble those floating bits and pieces into an enticing new possibility. — Rosabeth Moss Kanter

Creativity is allowing oneself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep. — Scott Adams

Critics are by no means the end of the law. Do not think all is over with you because your articles are rejected. It may be that the editor has his drawer full, or that he does not know enough to appreciate you, or you have not gained a reputation, or he is not in a mood to be pleased. A critic’s judgment is like that of any intelligent person. If he has experience, he is capable of judging whether a book will sell. That is all. — Lavina Goodell, junior editor, Harper’s Bazaar, 1866

Detail makes the difference between boring and terrific writing. It’s the difference between a pencil sketch and a lush oil painting. As a writer, words are your paint. Use all the colors. — Rhys Alexander, in “Writing Gooder”

Doing just a little bit during the time we have available puts you that much further ahead than if you took no action at all. — Byron Pulsifer, from “Take Action; Don’t Procrastinate”

Don’t stay in bed, unless you can make money in bed. — George Burns

Don’t try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say. It’s the one and only thing you have to offer. — Barbara Kingsolver

Don’t try to create and analyse at the same time. They’re different processes. — Immaculate Heart College, Art Department, Rule #8

Drama is life with the dull bits cut out. — Alfred Hitchcock

Even if you’re on the right track — you’ll get run over if you just sit there. — Will Rogers

Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it. — C. S. Lewis

Everything goes by the board: honor, pride, decency to get the book written. — William Faulkner

Everything you can imagine is real. — Pablo Picasso

Everywhere I go I’m asked if I think the university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don’t stifle enough of them. There’s many a best-seller that could have been prevented by a good teacher. — Flannery O’Conner

Fall down seven times, get up eight. — Japanese proverb

Fiction is the truth inside the lie. — Stephen King

Fiction is the truth inside the lie. — Stephen King

Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart … — William Wordsworth

For me, always setting those challenges that you’ve never done before are what makes a book more fun to write than it otherwise might be. — Dean Koontz

Forget all the rules. Forget about being published. Write for yourself and celebrate writing. — Melinda Haynes

Gangsters have guns and muscle, but a good writer always gets the last word. — Henry Farrell

God only exhibits his thunder and lightning at intervals, and so they always command attention. These are God’s adjectives. You thunder and lightning too much; the reader ceases to get under the bed, by and by. — Mark Twain

Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader — not the fact that it is raining, but the feeling of being rained upon. — E.L. Doctorow

Good writing takes more than just time; it wants your best moments and the best of you. — RealLivePreacher.com

Habits are first cobwebs, then cables. — Spanish proverb

Habits in writing as in life are only useful if they are broken as soon as they cease to be advantageous. — Somerset Maugham

Henry James would have been vastly improved as a novelist by a few whiffs of the Chicago stockyard. — H. L. Mencken

History will be kind to me for I intend to write it. — Winston Churchill

Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but the thing dies in the process and the innards are discouraging to any but the pure scientific mind. — E. B. White

Humor is a rubber sword — it allows you to make a point without drawing blood. — Mary Hirsch

Humor is also a way of saying something serious. — T. S. Eliot

I admire anybody who has the guts to write anything at all. — E. B. White

I always wrote with the idea that what I put out there is going to stay there. Once I publish something, it has been published. I’ve never deleted more than one or two posts from my site. I don’t think that there are takebacks. I don’t feel right about it. — Alison Headley, Digital Preservation and Blogs, SXSW 2006

I am a comic writer, which means I get to slay the dragons, and shoot the bull. — Rita Mae Brown

I am the literary equivalent of a Big Mac and fries. — Stephen King

I believe one writes because one has to create a world in which one can live. — Anais Nin

I believe the road to hell is paved with adverbs. — Stephen King

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

I don’t mind that you think slowly but I do mind that you are publishing faster than you think. — Wolfgang Pauli

I don’t take notes; I don’t outline, I don’t do anything like that. I just flail away at the goddamn thing. I’m a salami writer. I try to write good salami, but salami is salami. You can’t sell it as caviar. — Stephen King

I don’t think anyone should write their autobiography until after they’re dead. — Samuel Goldwyn

I don’t think my books would’ve have been as successful as they are if the readers didn’t think they were in the hands of a true crazy person. When I start a story, I don’t know where it’s going.s — Stephen King

I don’t wait for moods. You accomplish nothing if you do that. Your mind must know it has got to get down to work. — Pearl S. Buck

I feel I have a decent critical eye. But when I think I see a touchdown, I cheer. That’s feedback, too. Why should all the mistakes find their targets, but the successes meet with only silence — leaving the poor writer, who has poured out her/his heart, with nothing but: no, no, no, … . As [critics], don’t we have a responsibility to not only point out what needs changing, as we see it, but also what worked and why, so the writer WON’T change it and will be encouraged to produce more of the same? — J. R. Lankford, via Crayne.com

I had a hard time publishing my books in the beginning of my career, because editors were afraid what people would think of THEM, personally, if their name was associated with me. — Susie Bright

I had been advising young writers for some time that in today’s marketplace, you need to do high-concept ideas. The old style of breaking in doesn’t work anymore. Writing good books, writing them as tightly as you can, writing them as well as you can, doesn’t necessarily win you any plaudits in the marketplace. It’s a very competitive field out there, and to break in, you need to have high concept. And I always mention ‘Jurassic Park’ as the highest concept of all high concepts. A high-concept idea is one you can sum up in a few sentences — preferably one or two — and everybody must read it. Of course, in Jurassic Park, it’s ‘Scientists have cloned dinosaurs from ancient DNA, and now the dinosaurs are loose.’ There’s two sentences, and it makes you want to read that book. So I tell young writers, if you can do that, you’re going to be way ahead of the game, because publishers want high concept that they can promote and publicize and talk about succinctly. — Dean Koontz, on inspiration for “The Good Guy”

I have found that the greatest help in meeting any problem is to know where you yourself stand. That is, to have in words what you believe and are acting from. — William Faulkner

I have learned much more about fiction writing from reading the works of my favorite authors than from any book I have ever read about writing. — Jonathan Javitt, via Writer Unboxed

I have made this [letter] longer, because I have not had the time to make it shorter. — Blaise Pascal

I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, It’s a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope. Which is what I do, And that enables you to laugh at life’s realities. — Dr. Seuss

I never had any doubts about my abilities. I knew I could write. I just had to figure out how to eat while doing this. — Cormac McCarthy

I never know what I think about something until I read what I’ve written on it. — William Faulkner

I never think about the actual process of writing. I suppose I have a superstition about examining it too closely. — Anne Tyler

I notice that you use plain, simple language, short words and brief sentences. That is the way to write English - it is the modern way and the best way. Stick to it; don’t let fluff and flowers and verbosity creep in. When you catch an adjective, kill it. No, I don’t mean utterly, but kill most of them - then the rest will be valuable. They weaken when they are close together. They give strength when they are wide apart. An adjective habit, or a wordy, diffuse, flowery habit, once fastened upon a person, is as hard to get rid of as any other vice. — Mark Twain

I often have to write a hundred pages or more before there’s a paragraph that’s alive. — Philip Roth

I talk half the time to find out my own thoughts, as a school-boy turns his pockets inside out to see what is in them. One brings to light all sorts of personal property he had forgotten in his inventory. — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., in “The Professor at the Breakfast Table”

I think a real writer simply has to think in other terms. Not, ‘Will I get in this magazine? Will I get the NEA next year?’ but whether or not this work is something he would do if a gun was held to his head and somebody was going to pull the trigger as soon as the last word of the last paragraph of the last page was finished. Now if you can write out of the sense that you’re going to die as soon as the work is done, then you will write with urgency, honesty, courage, and without flinching at all, as if this were the last testament in language, the last utterance you could ever make to anybody. If a work is written like that, then I want to read it. If somebody’s writing out of that sense, then I’ll say, ‘This is serious. This person is not fooling around. This work is not a means to some other end, the work is not just intended for some silly superficial goal, this work is the writer saying something, because he or she feels that if it isn’t said, it will never be said.’ Those are the writers I want to read. And there are not many twentieth-century writers like that. — Charles Johnson

I think humor is one of the hardest things to write well because it requires an amazing balancing act of characterization, situation, authority, timing, and voice — especially the last two — and a total lack of author intrusion. — Alison Kent, at WriteMinded

I think reading critiques in general — perhaps about other unrelated stories — can help a new critic see how it’s done. For example, I agree to critique a story — and because I don’t know any better, I spout off personal preferences (’I don’t like female heroines!’ or ‘Do you really have to use religious imagery? Religion turns me off.’ — when those things may be central to the story and nothing more than my own tastes). Reading good critiques may help a newbie learn that a pro offers objective advice about more tangible problems (character development, grammar, advancing the plot, use of dialogue). — Anthony Boyd, via Crayne.com

I think that novels that leave out technology misrepresent life as badly as Victorians misrepresented life by leaving out sex. — Kurt Vonnegut

I think there’s a sometimes overlooked purpose in critiquing and that is to identify the strengths in a story as well, to offer encouragement and positive reinforcement in regard to those strengths, thereby preventing the possibility that the author will change, for the worse, those things that make the story good. — Debra Littlejohn Shinder, via Crayne.com

I will tell you what I have learned myself. For me, a long five or six mile walk helps. And one must go alone and every day. — Brenda Ueland

I would advise any beginning writer to write the first drafts as if no one else will ever read them — without a though about publication — and only in the last draft to consider how the work will look from the outside. — Anne Tyler

I wouldn’t encourage new writers to start off publishing through electronic media… it still isn’t wide enough for the readership they would need to get a good start. — Anne McCaffrey

I write for the same reason I breathe — because if I didn’t, I would die. — Isaac Asimov

I wrote the rest of The Innocents Abroad in sixty days and I could have added a fortnight’s labor with the pen and gotten along without the letters altogether. I was very young in those days, exceedingly young, marvelously young, younger than I am now, younger than I shall ever be again, by hundreds of years. I worked every night from eleven or twelve until broad daylight in the morning, and as I did 200,000 words in the sixty days, the average was more than 3,000 words a day — nothing for Sir Walter Scott, nothing for Louis Stevenson, nothing for plenty of other people, but quite handsome for me. In 1897, when we were living in Tedworth Square, London, and I was writing the book called Following the Equator, my average was 1,800 words a day; here in Florence (1904) my average seems to be 1,400 words per sitting of four or five hours. — Mark Twain

I’m sure we would not have had men on the Moon if it had not been for Wells and Verne and the people who write about this and made people think about it. I’m rather proud of the fact that I know several astronauts who became astronauts through reading my books. — Arthur C. Clarke

I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what
you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. — Maya Angelou

I’ve always believed in writing without a collaborator, because where two people are writing the same book, each believes he gets all the worries and only half the royalties. — Agatha Christie

If a thing goes without saying — let it. — Jacob Braude

If I cannot horrify, I’ll go for the gross-out. I’m not proud. — Stephen King

If I had to give young writers advice, I would say don’t listen to writers talking about writing or themselves. — Lillian Hellman

If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn’t brood. I’d type a little faster. — Isaac Asimov

If writers stopped writing about what happened to them, then there would be a lot of empty pages. — Elaine Liner, SXSW 2006

If you can’t annoy somebody, there is little point in writing. — Kingsley Amis

If you cannot write well, you cannot think well; if you cannot think well, others will do your thinking for you. — George Orwell

If you don’t like change, you’re going to like irrelevance even less. — General Eric Shinseki

If you fall in love with an idea, you won’t see the merits of alternative approaches — and will probably miss an opportunity or two. One of life’s great pleasures is letting go of a previously cherished idea. Then you’re free to look for new ones. What part of your idea are you in love with? What would happen if you kissed it goodbye? — Roger von Oech

If you want to make an easy job seem mighty hard, just keep putting off doing it. — Olin Miller

If you want to write better, an old mentor of mine once said, write tighter. Pick the fewest possible words, he said, and rely on compression to make your ideas explode off the page. — Jack Shafer

If you’re a singer, you lose your voice. A baseball player loses his arm. A writer gets more knowledge, and if he’s good, the older he gets, the better he writes. — Mickey Spillane

In a mood of faith and hope my work goes on. A ream of fresh paper lies on my desk waiting for the next book. I am a writer and I take up my pen to write. — Pearl S. Buck

In a time of social fragmentation, vulgarity becomes a way of life. To be shocking becomes more important — and often more profitable — than to be civil or creative or truly original. — Al Gore

In films murders are always very clean. I show how difficult it is and what a messy thing it is to kill a man. — Alfred Hitchcock

In the absences of a decent time machine, fiction remains the most sturdy vehicle for visiting other eras. — Tom Nolan

Inspiration is wonderful when it happens, but the writer must develop an approach for the rest of the time. … The wait is simply too long. — Leonard Bernstein

It hinders the creative work of the mind if the intellect examines too closely the ideas as they pour in. — Friedrich von Schiller

It is not good enough to have a good mind; the main thing is to use it well. — Charles Du Bos

It is with words as with sunbeams. The more they are condensed, the deeper they burn. — Robert Southey

It is worth mentioning, for future reference, that the creative power which bubbles so pleasantly in beginning a new book quiets down after a time, and one goes on more steadily. Doubts creep in. Then one becomes resigned. Determination not to give in, and the sense of an impending shape keep one at it more than anything. — Virginia Woolf

It took me about eight years to work my way up to publishing the first book, that first collection, ‘Facing the Music.’ — Larry Brown

It’s an act of faith to be a writer in a post-literate world. — Rita Mae Brown

It’s an adrenaline surge rushing through your body. You have this spark of an idea that keeps threatening to burst into flames and you have to get the words out on paper to match this emotion or picture in your head. After this comes the work of cleaning up the mess that you made. — Janet West

It’s kind of fun to do the impossible. — Walt Disney

It’s not enough to create magic. You have to create a price for magic, too. You have to create rules. — Eric A. Burns

It’s very important in building characters to make sure your ‘facts’ are accurate and consistent. If you mention in chapter two that your sister’s birth sign is Leo, and then in chapter twelve, you have her celebrating her birthday during a snowfall (unless she lives at the north pole [or in the southern hemisphere]), credibility will be lost. Even if the reader doesn’t key in on exactly ‘what’ is wrong with the picture, he/she will have a disquieting sense that ’something’ is. — Debra Littlejohn Shinder, via Crayne.com

Keep writing. Keep doing it and doing it. Even in the moments when it’s so hurtful to think about writing. — Heather Armstrong

Let us guess that whenever we read a sentence & like it, we unconsciously store it away in our model-chamber; & it goes, with the myriad of its fellows, to the building, brick by brick, of the eventual edifice which we call our style. — Mark Twain

Let’s begin a new literary movement. I don’t care what we call it. Let’s start writing novels for people who don’t like novels. Because these days who can blame them? You can please all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you can’t please all the people all the time. So let’s at least please ourselves. — Sol Luckman

Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler. — Albert Einstein

Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that’s creativity. — Charles Mingus

Many books require no thought from those who read them, and for a very simple reason; they made no such demand upon those who wrote them. — Charles Caleb Colton

Meeting a person who wrote a masterpiece on the back of a deli menu would not surprise me. Meeting a person who wrote a masterpiece with a silver Cartier fountain pen on an antique writing table in an airy SoHo loft would SERIOUSLY surprise me. — Hugh Macleod

Modern science fiction is the only form of literature that consistently considers the nature of the changes that face us, the possible consequences, and the possible solutions. That branch of literature which is concerned with the impact of scientific advance upon human beings. — Isaac Asimov

Modern science fiction is the only form of literature that consistently considers the nature of the changes that face us, the possible consequences, and the possible solutions. That branch of literature which is concerned with the impact of scientific advance upon human beings. — Isaac Asimov

Much of writing might be described as mental pregnancy with successive difficult deliveries. — J. B. Priestley

Must you write complete sentences each time, every time? Perish the thought. — Stephen King

My aim is to put down on paper what I see and what I feel in the best and simplest way. — Ernest Hemingway

My goal in life is to be the exact same person to you, whether you’ve met me for the first time or the 21st time. Your knowledge of me is there from the beginning in an honest, brutal sort of way. Get your writings to be there … in an honest, brutal sort of way, and you’ll have found your true voice. — Joyce Jace

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

My own experience has been that the tools I need for my trade are paper, tobacco, food, and a little whisky. — William Faulkner

Never express yourself more clearly than you are able to think. — Niels Bohr

Never innovate to compete, innovate to change the rules of the game. — David O. Adeife

Next to trying and winning, the best thing is trying and failing. — Lucy Maud Montgomery, in “Anne of Green Gables”

Nighttime is really the best time to work. All the ideas are there to be yours because everyone else is asleep. — Catherine O’Hara

No one is asking, let alone demanding, that you write. The world is not waiting with bated breath for your article or book. Whether or not you get a single word on paper, the sun will rise, the earth will spin, the universe will expand. Writing is forever and always a choice — your choice. — Beth Mende Conny

No passion in the world is equal to the passion to alter someone else’s draft. — H. G. Wells

No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. — Robert Frost

No, it’s not a very good story — its author was too busy listening to other voices to listen as closely as he should have to the one coming from inside. — Step

On a lazy Saturday morning when you’re lying in bed, drifting in and out of sleep, there is a space where fantasy and reality become one. Are you awake, or are you dreaming? You see people and things; some are familiar; some are strange. You talk, you feel, but you move without walking; you fly without wings. Your mind and your body exist, but on separate planes. Time stands still. For me, this is the feeling I have when ideas come. — Lynn Johnston

One writes to make a home for oneself, on paper, in time, in others’ minds. — Alfred Kazin

Our future and our fate lie in our wills more than in our hands, for our hands are but the instruments of our wills. — B.C. Forbes

People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing — that’s why we recommend it daily. — Zig Ziglar

People want to know why I do this, why I write such gross stuff. I like to tell them I have the heart of a small boy … and I keep it in a jar on my desk. — Stephen King

Please write again soon. Though my own life is filled with activity, letters encourage momentary escape into others lives and I come back to my own with greater contentment. — Elizabeth Forsythe Hailey

Poetry: the best words in the best order. — Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Presumably, we’re all fully qualified computer nerds here, so we are allowed to use ‘access’ as a verb. Be advised, however, that the practice in common usage drives English-language purists to scowling fidgets. — Erik Strom

Publishing is a business. Writing may be art, but publishing, when all is said and done, comes down to dollars. — Nicholas Sparks

Publishing your work is important. Even if you are giving a piece to some smaller publication for free, you will learn something about your writing. The editor will say something, friends will mention it. You will learn. — Tim Cahill

Put it before them briefly so they will read it, clearly so they will appreciate it, picturesquely so they will remember it, and above all, accurately so they will be guided by its light. — Joseph Pulitzer

Put the argument into a concrete shape, into an image, some hard phrase, round and solid as a ball, which they can see and handle and carry home with them, and the cause is half won. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Put the hours in. Doing anything worthwhile takes forever. 90% of what separates successful people and failed people is time, effort and stamina. — Hugh Macleod

Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man. — Sir Francis Bacon

Remember that you are a human being with a soul and the divine gift of articulate speech: that your native language is the language of Shakespeare and Milton and The Bible; and don’t sit there crooning like a bilious pigeon. — George Bernard Shaw, in “Pygmalion”

Remember too that a good writer always starts with something that is familiar to the listener. This is especially important if you’re going to talk about something he or she may not be familiar with, for if he doesn’t know what you are talking about to start with, he will probably switch off. — TheRadioAcademy.net

Science fiction is really sociological studies of the future, things that the writer believes are going to happen by putting two and two together. — Ray Bradbury

Show me a writer, any writer, who hasn’t suffered and I’ll show you someone who writes in pastels as opposed to primary colors. — Rita Mae Brown

So often is the virgin sheet of paper more real than what one has to say, and so often one regrets having marred it. — Harold Acton

So you see, imagination needs moodling — long, inefficient, happy idling, dawdling and puttering. — Brenda Ueland

Some editors are failed writers, but so are most writers. — T. S. Eliot

Stories may well be lies, but they are good lies that say true things, and which can sometimes pay the rent. — Neil Gaiman

Success comes to a writer, as a rule, so gradually that it is always something of a shock to him to look back and realize the heights to which he has climbed. — P.G. Wodehouse

Success is a finished book, a stack of pages each of which is filled with words. If you reach that point, you have won a victory over yourself no less impressive than sailing single-handed around the world. — Tom Clancy

Success seems to be largely a matter of hanging on after others have let go. — William Feather

Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work. — Stephen King

The aim of every artist is to arrest motion, which is life, by artificial means and hold it fixed so that a hundred years later, when a stranger looks at it, it moves again since it is life. — William Faulkner

The artist doesn’t have time to listen to the critics. The ones who want to be writers read the reviews, the ones who want to write don’t have the time to read reviews. — William Faulkner

The best way to become acquainted with a subject is to write a book about it. — Benjamin Disraeli

The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas. — Linus Pauling

The bridges you cross before you come to them are over rivers that aren’t there. — Gene Brown

The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the objects it loves. — Carl Jung

The creative adult is the child who has survived. — Ursula K. le Guin

The difference between a job and a career is the difference between forty and sixty hours a week. — Robert Frost

The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense. — Tom Clancy

The difficulty of literature is not to write, but to write what you mean; not to affect your reader, but to affect him precisely as you wish. — Robert Louis Stevenson

The faster I write the better my output. If I’m going slow I’m in trouble. It means I’m pushing the words instead of being pulled by them. — Raymond Chandler

The function of science fiction is not always to predict the future but sometimes to prevent it. — Frank Herbert

The great art of writing is knowing when to stop. — Josh Billings

The greatest amount of wasted time is the time not getting started. — Dawson Trotman

The habit of always putting off an experience until you can afford it, or until the time is right, or until you know how to do it is one of the greatest burglars of joy. Be deliberate, but once you’ve made up your mind — jump in. — Charles R. Swindoll

The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity. — Albert Einstein

The key point is to get the reader to engage in a contract in which the writer offers: ‘I’m not going to show you everything in the character’s head because that would spoil the story for you. Instead, I will reveal things as we go along but I promise that I won’t cheat.’ — Trevor Lawrence, via Crayne.com

The man who follows the crowd will usually get no further than the crowd. The man who walks alone is likely to find himself in places no one has ever been. — Alan Ashley-Pitt

The man who writes about himself and his own time is the only man who writes about all people and all time. — George Bernard Shaw

The money can be decent, but I really don’t recommend the work-for-hire route as an entry into publishing. Too many things can go wrong. — Lynn Abbey

The only thing I ever wanted in business is an unfair advantage. — Patricia Fripp, fripp.com

The problem is never how to get new, innovative thoughts into your mind, but how to get old ones out. Every mind is a building filled with archaic furniture. Clean out a corner of your mind and creativity will instantly fill it. — Dee Hock

The reader would have a tough time imagining a two-fisted hero named Elmer Small, but James Retief comes across just fine as a hero in Keith Laumer’s stories. Similarly, Bubbles La Toure is hardly the name of a saintly nun, whereas Modesty Blaise is a sexy and intriguing name for a female counterpart of James Bond. — Ben Bova, via Crayne.com (on naming characters)

The real technology — behind all our other technologies — is language. It actually creates the world our consciousness lives in. — Andrei Codrescu

The secret of getting ahead is getting started. — Sally Berger

The skill of writing is to create a context in which other people can think. — Edwin Schlossberg

The strokes of the pen need deliberation as much as the sword needs swiftness. — Julia Ward Howe

The test of literature is, I suppose, whether we ourselves live more intensely for the reading of it. — Elizabeth Drew

The time to begin writing an article is when you have finished it to your satisfaction. By that time you begin to clearly and logically perceive what it is that you really want to say. — Mark Twain

The universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for us to grow sharper. — Eden Philpotts

The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing. — Walt Disney

The wit makes fun of other persons; the satirist makes fun of the world; the humorist makes fun of himself. — James Thurber

There are some books that refuse to be written. They stand their ground year after year and will not be persuaded. It isn’t because the book is not there and worth being written — it is only because the right form of the story does not present itself. There is only one right form for a story and if you fail to find that form the story will not tell itself. — Mark Twain

There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are. — Somerset Maugham

There are two kinds of writer: those that make you think, and those that make you wonder. — Brian Aldiss

There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it’s going to be a butterfly. — Buckminster Fuller

There’s nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein. — Walter Wellesley “Red” Smith

This is pretty much what journals are all about, at least to me. I knew as I wrote them that even though they provided an excellent place for brain (and heart, and psyche) dump, they were mainly a map of me. — Colleen Wainwright, communicatrix.com

Those who wish to sing, always find a song. — Swedish proverb

To get the right word in the right place is a rare achievement. To condense the diffused light of a page of thought into the luminous flash of a single sentence, is worthy to rank as a prize composition just by itself. … Anybody can have ideas — the difficulty is to express them without squandering a quire of paper on an idea that ought to be reduced to one glittering paragraph. — Mark Twain

To get the right word in the right place is a rare achievement. To condense the diffused light of a page of thought into the luminous flash of a single sentence, is worthy to rank as a prize composition just by itself…Anybody can have ideas–the difficulty is to express them without squandering a quire of paper on an idea that ought to be reduced to one glittering paragraph. — Mark Twain

To write what is worth publishing, to find honest people to publish it, and get sensible people to read it, are the three great difficulties in being an author. — Charles Caleb Colton

Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Usually, when people get to the end of a chapter, they close the book and go to sleep. I deliberately write my books so when the reader gets to the end of a chapter, he or she must turn one more page. When people tell me I’ve kept them up all night, I feel like I’ve succeeded! — Sidney Sheldon

We all need to be told where we are very good as well as where we are very, very bad. We cannot grow, otherwise. — Pete Murphy, via Crayne.com

We are not here to be timid. — Donald Maass

We learn from failure, not from success! — Bram Stoker, in “Dracula”

We write to taste life twice. — Anais Nin

Well, picture me sitting at breakfast in the morning. As I sip my coffee, my wife glances down at the floor and observes, ‘Bruce, we really need a new dining room rug. This one is wearing out.’ Right there I have the inspiration to write another article. — Bruce Barton, in response to a student’s question about how he got inspired to write

What an author likes to write most is his signature on the back of a check. — Brendan Francis

What is written without effort is in generally read without pleasure. — Samuel Johnson

What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail? — Robert Schuller

When all things are equal, translucence in writing is more effective than transparency, just as glow is more revealing than glare. — James Thurber

When asked, ‘How do you write?’ I invariably answer, ‘one word at a time.’ — Stephen King

When someone who is known for being comedic does something straight, it’ s always ‘a big breakthrough’ or a ‘radical departure.’ Why is it no one ever says that if a straight actor does comedy? Are they presuming comedy is easier? — Carol Burnett

When we read, we start at the beginning and continue until we reach the end. When we write, we start in the middle and fight our way out. — Vickie Karp

When, however, one reads of a witch being ducked, of a woman possessed by devils, of a wise woman selling herbs, or even a very remarkable man who had a mother, then I think we are on the track of a lost novelist, a suppressed poet … indeed, I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman. — Virginia Woolf

Why can’t somebody give us a list of things that everybody thinks and nobody says, and another list of things that everybody says and nobody thinks? — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., in “The Professor at the Breakfast Table”

Why do writers write? Because it isn’t there. — Thomas Berger

Women do not always have to write about women, or gay men about gay men. Indeed, something good and new might happen if they did not. — Kathryn Hughes

Words are sacred. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little. — Tom Stoppard

Words, once they are printed, have a life of their own. — Carol Burnett

Writers should be read, but neither seen nor heard. — Daphne du Maurier

Writers will happen in the best of families. — Rita Mae Brown

Writers will happen in the best of families. — Rita Mae Brown

Writing comes more easily if you have something to say. — Sholem Asch

Writing gives you the illusion of control, and then you realize it’s just an illusion, that people are going to bring their own stuff into it. — David Sedaris

Writing is a fairly lonely business unless you invite people in to watch you do it, which is often distracting and then you have to ask them to leave. — Marc Lawrence

Writing is the hardest way of earning a living, with the possible exception of wrestling alligators. — Olin Miller

Writing is the hardest work in the world. I have been a bricklayer and a truck driver, and I tell you — as if you haven’t been told a million times already — that writing is harder. Lonelier. And nobler and more enriching. — Harlan Ellison

Writing is the only thing that, when I do it, I don’t feel I should be doing something else. — Gloria Steinem

Writing well mean never having to say, ‘I guess you had to be there.’ — Jef Mallett, cartoonist

Yes there is a meaning; at least for me, there is one thing that matters — to set a chime of words tinkling in the minds of a few fastidious people. — Logan Pearsall Smith

You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step. — Martin Luther King, Jr.

You learn by writing short stories. Keep writing short stories. The money’s in novels, but writing short stories keeps your writing lean and pointed. — Larry Niven

You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you. — Ray Bradbury

You will never plow a field if you only turn it over in your mind. — Irish proverb

[Y]ou can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus. — Mark Twain, in “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court”