Quotes on Great Writing

Words - so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them.

A word after a word after a word is power.

The desire to write grows with writing.

There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.

Just write every day of your life. Read intensely.

Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia.

The story I am writing exists, written in absolutely perfect fashion, some place, in the air. All I must do is find it, and copy it.

If you do not breathe through writing, if you do not cry out in writing, or sing in writing, then don't write, because our culture has no use for it.

Writing and rewriting are a constant search for what it is one is saying.

Write freely and as rapidly as possible and throw the whole thing on paper. Never correct or rewrite until the whole thing is down. Rewrite in process is usually found to be an excuse for not going on.

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.

Follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly.

Let the world burn through you. Throw the prism light, white hot, on paper.

I would advise anyone who aspires to a writing career that before developing his talent he would be wise to develop a thick hide.

Just write every day of your life. Read intensely. Then see what happens. Most of my friends who are put on that diet have very pleasant careers.

Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.

A man will turn over half a library to make one book.

The greatest part of a writer's time is spent in reading in order to write. A man will turn over half a library to make a book.

Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on

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

Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.