Explore Quotes on Writing

Any word you have to hunt for in a thesaurus is the wrong word. There are no exceptions to this rule.

The first step in making rabbit stew is catching the rabbit.

And I could write it better than you ever felt it.

Keep me up till five because all your stars are out, and for no other reason…Oh dare to do it Buddy! Trust your heart. You’re a deserving craftsman. It would never betray you. Good night. I’m feeling very much over-excited now, and a little dramatic, but I think I’d give almost anything on earth to see you writing a something, an anything, a poem, a tree, that was really and truly after your own heart.

Write what disturbs you, what you fear, what you have not been willing to speak about. Be willing to be split open.

No matter where; of comfort no man speak: Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs; Make dust our paper and with rainy eyes Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth

Nothing's a better cure for writer's block than to eat ice cream right out of the carton.

The cat sat on the mat is not a story. The cat sat on the other cat’s mat is a story.

Always mystify, torture, mislead, and surprise the audience as much as possible.

To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme.

you must not come lightly to the blank page.

Say all you have to say in the fewest possible words, or your reader will be sure to skip them; and in the plainest possible words or he will certainly misunderstand them.

One must be drenched in words, literally soaked in them, to have the right ones form themselves into the proper pattern at the right moment.

Writing is utter solitude, the descent into the cold abyss of oneself.

Poetry puts starch in your backbone so you can stand, so you can compose your life.

Nothing quite has reality for me till I write it all down--revising and embellishing as I go. I'm always waiting for things to be over so I can get home and commit them to paper.

She decides to make a list of the things that make her happy. She writes 'plum-blossom' at the top of a piece of paper. Then she stares at the paper, unable to think of anything else. Eventually it begins to get dark.

She would smile and show no surprise, convinced as she was, the same as I, that casual meetings are apt to be just the opposite, and that people who make dates are the same kind who need lines on their writing paper, or who always squeeze up from the bottom on a tube of toothpaste.

After all, reading is arguably a far more creative and imaginative process than writing; when the reader creates emotion in their head, or the colors of the sky during the setting sun, or the smell of a warm summer's breeze on their face, they should reserve as much praise for themselves as they do for the writer - perhaps more.

Only write to me, write to me, I love to see the hop and skip and sudden starts of your ink.

The ordinary-sized stuff which is our lives, the things people write poetry about—clouds—daffodils—waterfalls—what happens in a cup of coffee when the cream goes in—these things are full of mystery, as mysterious to us as the heavens were to the Greeks.