Quotes About Writing

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

"If a writer wrote merely for his time, I would have to break my pen and throw it away." -Victor Hugo

"The novel is an event in consciousness. Our aim isn't to copy actuality, but to modify and recreate our sense of it. The novelist is inviting the reader to watch a performance in his own brain." -George Buchanan

"There is no such thing as public opinion. There is only published opinion." -Winston Churchill

"There are three rules for writing the novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are." -W. Somerset Maugham

"I think I did pretty well, considering I started out with nothing but a bunch of blank paper." -Steve Martin

"After being turned down by numerous publishers, he had decided to write for posterity." -George Ade

"A writer should have another lifetime to see if he's appreciated." -Jorge Luis Borges

"This report, by its very length, defends itself against the risk of being read." -Winston Churchill

"By writing much, one learns to write well." -Robert Southey

"Write quickly and you will never write well. Write well, and you will soon write quickly." -Marcus Fabius Quintilianus

"I have made this letter longer, because I have not had the time to make it shorter." -Blaise Pascal

"The ill and unfit choice of words wonderfully obstructs the understanding." -Francis Bacon

"It's none of their business that you have to learn to write. Let them think you were born that way." -Ernest Hemingway

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

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

"Your manuscript is both good and original, but the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good." -Samuel Johnson

"I have been successful probably because I have always realized that I knew nothing about writing and have merely tried to tell an interesting story entertainingly." -Edgar Rice Burroughs

"No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader." -Robert Frost

"Each writer is born with a repertory company in his head and as you get older, you become more skillful casting them." -Gore Vidal

"Stories have a beginning, a midlle and an end. But not necessarily in that order." -Robert Silverberg

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

"Write without pay until someone offers pay. If nobody offers within three years, the candidate may look upon this as a sign that sawing wood is what he was intended for." -Mark Twain

"No passion in the world is equal to the passion to alter someone else's draft." -H.G. Wells