Here are dozens of writing quips and tips from famous novelists, authors, and editors.
“Risk being unliked. Tell the truth as you understand it. If you’re a writer, you have a moral obligation to do this. And it is a revolutionary action – truth is always subversive.” – Anne Lamott.
“Don’t get it right, just get it written.” – James Thurber.
“What I did have, which others perhaps didn’t, was a capacity for sticking at it, which really is the point, not the talent at all. You have to stick at it.” – Doris Lessing.
“Teach yourself to work in uncertainty.” – Bernard Malamud.
“I write a book or a short story three times. Once to understand her, the second time to improve her prose, and a third to compel her to say what it still must say.” – Bernard Malamud.
“Advice to young writers? Always the same advice: learn to trust our own judgment, learn inner independence, learn to trust that time will sort the good from the bad – including your own bad.” – Doris Lessing.
“I’m one of those people that believes you should start writing before you think you’re ready.” – Joseph Ellis.
“I hear people say they’re going to write. I ask, when? They give me vague statements. Indefinite plans get dubious results. When we’re concrete about our writing time, it alleviates that thin constant feeling of anxiety that writers have – we’re barbecuing hot dogs, riding a bike, sailing out in the bay, shopping for shoes, even helping a sick friend, but somewhere nervously at the periphery of our perception we know we belong somewhere else – at our desk!” – Natalie Goldberg
“Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply 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.
“Know that you will eventually have to leave everything behind; the writing will demand it of you. Bareboned, you are on the path with no markers, only the skulls of those who never made it back – over and over again.” – Natalie Goldberg
“The writer must believe that what he is doing is the most important thing in the world. And he must hold to this illusion even when he knows it is not true.” – John Steinbeck.
“Close the door. Write with no one looking over your shoulder. 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.
“I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead,” – Mark Twain.
“I don’t believe in writer’s block. I don’t know what that is. There are just certain little areas that I know I’m going to get through. It’s just a matter of finding a way.” – Elmore Leonard.
“All writers must go from now to once a upon a time; all must go from here to there; all must descend to where the stories are kept; all must take care not to be captured and held immobile by the past.” – Margaret Atwood.
“As for discipline – it’s important, but sort of over-rated. The more important virtue for a writer, I believe, is self-forgiveness. Because your writing will always disappoint you. Your laziness will always disappoint you.” – Elizabeth Gilbert.
“Other [writers] find excuses for not writing at the same time every day, balk at re-revising incessantly, or excuse themselves because their lives are beset by difficulty. I am deaf to that excuse because I worked with the most disadvantaged writer in history, Christy Brown, who had the use of his brain, the little toe on his left foot, and little else. I published five of Christy Brown’s books, one of which made the national bestseller lists. I urge you to see the video of a remarkable film called My Left Foot. It won an Oscar for Daniel Day-Lewis, who played Christy. The file may cure you of fishing for an excuse for not writing.” – Sol Stein.
“In the end, writing skills are mostly absorbed, not learned. Like learning to speak as a native speaker, learning to write well is not just learning a set of rules or techniques. It’s a huge, messy body of deep language, inspired by bits of readings, conversations, incidents; it’s affected by how you were taught and where you live and who you want to become. For every convention, there is another way that may work better. For every rule, there are mavericks who succeed by flaunting it. There is no right or wrong way to write, no ten easy steps.” – Philip Martin.
“When I’m scared – and I’m always scared when I have to face an audience, when I have to read a review, when I publish a book…then, I think of my grandfather. My grandfather was this strong, tough Basque who would never bend….What would he do? Well, he would go ahead, close his eyes, and drive forward. You do it and the spirit that is within you….is there.” – Isabelle Allende.
“We think writers should stop placing so much emphasis on ‘rejections.’ They’re not rejections – they’re business decisions. What if your attorney or massage therapist moped around in their bathrobes like writers do whenever they lost a potential client?” – Linda Formichelli and Diana Burrell.
“Let the grass die. I let almost all of my indoor plants die from neglect while I was writing the book. There are all kinds of ways to live. You can take your choice. You can keep a tidy house, and when St. Peter asks you what you did with your life, you can say, I kept a tidy house, I made my own cheese balls.” – Annie Dillard.
“When I am writing I am doing the thing I was meant to do.” – Anne Sexton.
“I put a piece of paper under my pillow, and when I could not sleep I wrote in the dark,” said Henry David Thoreau.
“Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.” - Mark Twain.
“I shall live badly if I do not write.” – Francoise Sagan.
“Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.” – Rudyard Kipling.
“Know that you will eventually have to leave everything behind; the writing will demand it of you. Bareboned, you are on the path with no markers, only the skulls of those who never made it back – over and over again.” – Natalie Goldberg
“For many writers – professional writers – writing faster is simply a matter of survival. Writing faster can mean the difference between making a go of a challenging career as an author versus going back to your old job as an accountant or asking ‘Smoking or non-smoking’ down at Bob’s Big Boy. Writer’s block, you might even say, is a luxury that real writers can’t afford.” – David Fyxell.
“I don’t write a word of the article until I have the lead. It just sets the whole tone – the whole point of view. I know exactly where I’m going as soon as I have the lead.” – Nora Ephron.
“What’s so hard about the first sentence is that you’re stuck with it. Everything else is going to flow out of that sentence. And by the time you’ve laid down the first two sentences, your options are all gone.” – Joan Didion.
“All writing problems are psychological problems. Blocks usually stem from the fear of being judged. If you imagine the world listening, you’ll never write a line. That’s why privacy is so important. You should write first drafts as if they will never be shown to anyone.” – Erica Jong.
“Risk being unliked. Tell the truth as you understand it. If you’re a writer, you have a moral obligation to do this. And it is a revolutionary action – truth is always subversive.” – Anne Lamott.
“Don’t get it right, just get it written.” – James Thurber.
“What I did have, which others perhaps didn’t, was a capacity for sticking at it, which really is the point, not the talent at all. You have to stick at it.” – Doris Lessing.
“Teach yourself to work in uncertainty.” – Bernard Malamud.
“I write a book or a short story three times. Once to understand her, the second time to improve her prose, and a third to compel her to say what it still must say.” – Bernard Malamud.
“Advice to young writers? Always the same advice: learn to trust our own judgment, learn inner independence, learn to trust that time will sort the good from the bad – including your own bad.” – Doris Lessing.
“I’m one of those people that believes you should start writing before you think you’re ready.” – Joseph Ellis.
“I hear people say they’re going to write. I ask, when? They give me vague statements. Indefinite plans get dubious results. When we’re concrete about our writing time, it alleviates that thin constant feeling of anxiety that writers have – we’re barbecuing hot dogs, riding a bike, sailing out in the bay, shopping for shoes, even helping a sick friend, but somewhere nervously at the periphery of our perception we know we belong somewhere else – at our desk!” – Natalie Goldberg
“Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply 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.
“Know that you will eventually have to leave everything behind; the writing will demand it of you. Bareboned, you are on the path with no markers, only the skulls of those who never made it back – over and over again.” – Natalie Goldberg
“The writer must believe that what he is doing is the most important thing in the world. And he must hold to this illusion even when he knows it is not true.” – John Steinbeck.
“Close the door. Write with no one looking over your shoulder. 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.
“I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead,” – Mark Twain.
“I don’t believe in writer’s block. I don’t know what that is. There are just certain little areas that I know I’m going to get through. It’s just a matter of finding a way.” – Elmore Leonard.
“All writers must go from now to once a upon a time; all must go from here to there; all must descend to where the stories are kept; all must take care not to be captured and held immobile by the past.” – Margaret Atwood.
“As for discipline – it’s important, but sort of over-rated. The more important virtue for a writer, I believe, is self-forgiveness. Because your writing will always disappoint you. Your laziness will always disappoint you.” – Elizabeth Gilbert.
“Other [writers] find excuses for not writing at the same time every day, balk at re-revising incessantly, or excuse themselves because their lives are beset by difficulty. I am deaf to that excuse because I worked with the most disadvantaged writer in history, Christy Brown, who had the use of his brain, the little toe on his left foot, and little else. I published five of Christy Brown’s books, one of which made the national bestseller lists. I urge you to see the video of a remarkable film called My Left Foot. It won an Oscar for Daniel Day-Lewis, who played Christy. The file may cure you of fishing for an excuse for not writing.” – Sol Stein.
“In the end, writing skills are mostly absorbed, not learned. Like learning to speak as a native speaker, learning to write well is not just learning a set of rules or techniques. It’s a huge, messy body of deep language, inspired by bits of readings, conversations, incidents; it’s affected by how you were taught and where you live and who you want to become. For every convention, there is another way that may work better. For every rule, there are mavericks who succeed by flaunting it. There is no right or wrong way to write, no ten easy steps.” – Philip Martin.
“When I’m scared – and I’m always scared when I have to face an audience, when I have to read a review, when I publish a book…then, I think of my grandfather. My grandfather was this strong, tough Basque who would never bend….What would he do? Well, he would go ahead, close his eyes, and drive forward. You do it and the spirit that is within you….is there.” – Isabelle Allende.
“We think writers should stop placing so much emphasis on ‘rejections.’ They’re not rejections – they’re business decisions. What if your attorney or massage therapist moped around in their bathrobes like writers do whenever they lost a potential client?” – Linda Formichelli and Diana Burrell.
“Let the grass die. I let almost all of my indoor plants die from neglect while I was writing the book. There are all kinds of ways to live. You can take your choice. You can keep a tidy house, and when St. Peter asks you what you did with your life, you can say, I kept a tidy house, I made my own cheese balls.” – Annie Dillard.
“When I am writing I am doing the thing I was meant to do.” – Anne Sexton.
“I put a piece of paper under my pillow, and when I could not sleep I wrote in the dark,” said Henry David Thoreau.
“Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.” - Mark Twain.
“I shall live badly if I do not write.” – Francoise Sagan.
“Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.” – Rudyard Kipling.
“Know that you will eventually have to leave everything behind; the writing will demand it of you. Bareboned, you are on the path with no markers, only the skulls of those who never made it back – over and over again.” – Natalie Goldberg
“For many writers – professional writers – writing faster is simply a matter of survival. Writing faster can mean the difference between making a go of a challenging career as an author versus going back to your old job as an accountant or asking ‘Smoking or non-smoking’ down at Bob’s Big Boy. Writer’s block, you might even say, is a luxury that real writers can’t afford.” – David Fyxell.
“I don’t write a word of the article until I have the lead. It just sets the whole tone – the whole point of view. I know exactly where I’m going as soon as I have the lead.” – Nora Ephron.
“What’s so hard about the first sentence is that you’re stuck with it. Everything else is going to flow out of that sentence. And by the time you’ve laid down the first two sentences, your options are all gone.” – Joan Didion.
“All writing problems are psychological problems. Blocks usually stem from the fear of being judged. If you imagine the world listening, you’ll never write a line. That’s why privacy is so important. You should write first drafts as if they will never be shown to anyone.” – Erica Jong.
“For me, writing something down was the only road out…I hated childhood, and spent it sitting behind a book waiting for adulthood to arrive. When I ran out of books I made up my own. At night, when I couldn’t sleep, I made up stories in the dark.” – Anne Tyler.
“A writer who waits for ideal conditions under which to work will die without putting a word on paper.” – E.B. White.
“You must want to enough. Enough to take all the rejections, enough to pay the price in disappointment and discouragement while you are learning. Like any other artist you must learn your craft – then you can add all the genius you like.” – Phyllis Whitney.
“You are on the look out for experience, strength, and hope. You want to hear from the horse’s mouth exactly how disappointments have been survived. It helps to know that the greats have had hard times too and that your own hard times merely make you part of the club.” – Julia Cameron.
“We have to accept ourselves in order to write. Now none of us does that fully: few of us do it even halfway. Don’t wait for one hundred percent acceptance of yourself before you write, or even eight percent acceptance. Just write. The process of writing is an activity that teaches us about acceptance.” – Natalie Goldberg.
“The fact is that blank pages inspire me with terror. What will I put on them? Will it be good enough? Will I have to throw it out?” – Margaret Atwood.
“A few places are especially conducive to inspiration – automobiles, church – public places. I plotted Couples almost entirely in church – little shivers and urgencies I would note down on the program, and carry down to the office Monday.” – John Updike.
“The best way is always to stop when you are going good and when you know what will happen next. If you do that every day when you’re rewriting a novel you will never be stuck.” Ernest Hemingway.
“I approach my work with a passionate intensity, acting as if its success depends entirely on me. “But once I’ve done my best, I try to let go as much as possible and have no expectations about how my work will be received by the world.” – Sarah Ban Breathnach.
“My writing is a process of rewriting, of going back and changing and filling in. In the rewriting process you discover what’s going on, and you go back and bring it up to that point. Sometimes you’ll just push through, indicate a scene or a character, leave a space, then go back later and fill it in.” – Joan Didion.
“Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere. Start by getting something – anything – down on paper. What I’ve learned to do when I sit down to work on a shitty first draft is to quiet the voices in my head.” – Anne Lamott.
“I think marriage and writing books are very difficult to combine. If things don’t go well between you, then there’s a tendency for the partner to blame it on the book, and quite right. The person a writer marries is forced to take a certain role in relation to the writer, and may not like that role. It happens with all creative people, actors, musicians…but writers are particularly difficult, because they have to be so solitary.” – Jill Robinson.
“As a profession, freelance writing is notoriously insecure. That’s the first argument in its favor. For many reasons, a few of them rational, the thought of knowing exactly what next year’s accomplishments, routine, income, and vacation will be – or even what time I have to get up tomorrow morning – has always depressed me.” – Gloria Steinem.
“I’ve never been able to force a novel. I always had the sense something being given to me. You can’t sit around and wait until inspiration strikes, but neither can you force into being something that isn’t there.” – Margaret Laurence.
“Don’t write down to your readers. The ones dumber than you can’t read.” - Jack Bickham.
“Writers have to get used to launching something beautiful and watching it crash and burn. They also have to learn when to let go control, when the work takes off on its own and flies, farther than they ever planned or imagined, to places they didn’t know they knew. All makers must leave room for the acts of the spirit. But they have to work hard and carefully, and wait patiently, to deserve them.” – Ursula Le Guin.
“Write straight into the emotional center of things. Write toward vulnerability. Don’t worry about appearing sentimental. Worry about being unavailable; worry about being absent or fraudulent.” – Anne Lamott.
Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass. ~Anton Chekhov
Every writer I know has trouble writing. ~Joseph Heller
I’d rather be caught holding up a bank than stealing so much as a two-word phrase from another writer. ~Jack Smith
The best time for planning a book is while you’re doing the dishes. ~Agatha Christie
How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live. ~Henry David Thoreau
It is impossible to discourage the real writers – they don’t give a damn what you say, they’re going to write. ~Sinclair Lewis
Sleep on your writing; take a walk over it; scrutinize it of a morning; review it of an afternoon; digest it after a meal; let it sleep in your drawer a twelvemonth; never venture a whisper about it to your friend, if he be an author especially. ~A. Bronson Alcott
Writing is a solitary occupation. Family, friends, and society are the natural enemies of the writer. He must be alone, uninterrupted, and slightly savage if he is to sustain and complete an undertaking. – Jessamyn West.
