Quotes About Writing

Writing is my time machine, takes me to the precise time and place I belong.

Let your pen faithfully reflect the glint of light from your soul.

I suggested that he should write out the whole affair from beginning to end, knowing that ink might assist him to ease his mind. When little boys have learned a new bad word they are never happy till they have chalked it up on a door. And this also is Literature.

Any real writer — or reader — has had a papercut on the forehead at least once.

Your writing chamber isn't the office or the study — it's your heart.

With sixty staring me in the face, I have developed inflammation of the sentence structure and a definite hardening of the paragraphs.

I write because... every writer has only one story to tell, really, and I haven't told mine yet.

As to the Adjective: When in doubt, strike it out.

Writing is both a sacrificing and a saving of soul.

My prose style at this time was a stomach-twisting blend of the Bible, Carl Sandburg, H.L. Mencken, Jeffrey Farnol, Christopher Morley, Samuel Pepys, and Franklin Pierce Adams imitating Samuel Pepys. I was quite apt to throw in a "bless the mark" at any spot, and to begin a sentence with "Lord" comma.

...a writer is, by trade, a talkative fellow on paper and appreciates an audience.

When I stop the rest of the day is posthumous. I'm only really alive when I'm writing.

Writing is easy. You just sit down and focus — but not too hard.

An author plants the alphabet — and harvests flowers, nourishment, and weeds.

Writer's block is a disease for which there is no cure, only respite.

Pen and ink is wit's plough.

"Mr. Harte, what books shall I read to acquire a perfect style?" "Oh, lord!" he groaned, swinging around in his chair, "for pity's sake, don't read anything! Just write! Write! Write!"

Writing isn't hard; no harder than ditch-digging.

Some writers have beautiful poetry inside that explodes from the pen into prose. Others hold their inner prose until it implodes to poetry.

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 one book.

Reading in bed is a gateway drug to writing in bed.

Remember to use all five senses... Smell, in particular, can be incredibly evocative when written well. Think about temperature, ambient sounds, the feel of the ground, the taste of the air.

Some authors write with a grave ink, of a dramatic pen dipped into their dark souls.

I was learning then that the terrible thing about being a writer is that you don't decide to be one, you discover that you are one.