Quotes About Writing

Bending to her task, she picked up the pen, dipped it into the inkwell, and feverishly began to write again.

I never give advice to young writers. They don't need someone to tell them to write something every day. The one thing I will say is: have fun with it. Don't listen to all these authors who tell you that writing is such hard work... If you go into it thinking that, it's going to be a chore for you. If you instead go, Hey! Look at me writing. I'm creating something! I'm having a good time! that's the way to go. Writing is a lot easier when you have that attitude.

Yes, that's the laptop I use to write all the Goosebumps books. I know it looks strange. That's because someone's lap is still attached. Don't touch it. I think it's contagious.

He pulled out his personal journal and pen. Jess understood the impulse, all too well, to spill out the bile and hurt into ink, where no one could see it.

Aristotle might have walked here, he thought. Might have scratched out that first copy of On Sphere Making, sitting at a table right over there.

You don't just have ink in your blood. It's in your bones. Your skeleton's black with it.

Writing is a lonely occupation at best. Of course there are stimulating and even happy associations with friends and colleagues, but during the actual work of creation the writer cuts himself off from all others and confronts his subject alone. He* moves into a realm where he has never been before — perhaps where no one has ever been. It is a lonely place, even a little frightening.

Given the initial talent … writing is largely a matter of application and hard work, of writing and rewriting endlessly, until you are satisfied that you have said what you want to say as clearly and simply as possible. For me, that usually means many, many revisions.

You are wise enough to understand that being "a little lonely" is not a bad thing. A writer's occupation is one of the loneliest in the world, even if the loneliness is only an inner solitude and isolation, for that he must have at times if he is to be truly creative. And so I believe only the person who knows and is not afraid of loneliness should aspire to be a writer. But there are also rewards that are rich and peculiarly satisfying.

A dynamic female zoology professor expanded her intellectual horizons by urging her to take the daring step of majoring in biology rather than English. In doing so, Carson discovered that science not only engaged her mind but gave her "something to write about.

The handwriting was a girl's. I mean, you can tell. That enchanted cursive.

I felt especially grateful now having the red Moleskine to confide in. Just knowing a Snarl was on the other side to read it—to possibly care—inspired my pen to move quickly in answer to his question.

Because I hadn't known that I knew these things. Just having a notebook to write them in, and having someone to write them to, made them all rise to the surface.

I love you for answering the call of a red notebook once upon a time.

It was a red Moleskine—made of neither mole nor skin, but nonetheless the preferred journal of my associates who felt the need to journal in non-electronic form.

When I was old enough to read and write, my parents gave me an eraser board that I kept in my room at all times. The idea was that when frustrated, I, Lily, should write down words on the board to express my feelings instead of letting she-devil Shrilly express them through shrieking. It was supposed to be a therapeutic tool.

My hands were starting to shake a little. Because I hadn't known that I knew these things. Just having a notebook to write them in, and having someone to write them to, made them all rise to the surface.

I started to write: Langston deserves to be sick. But I erased that and wrote, Okay. I'll make him some.

We're to write our letters to Father Christmas." "To be burned up in the chimney?" Gem asked. "One of my favorite British traditions.

You can tell a lot about a person from the pages he or she chooses to journal on—I was strictly a college-ruled man myself, having no talent for illustration and a microscopic scrawl that made wide-ruled seem roomy.

Let me begin afresh. Perhaps, this time, to tell the truth. For in the biting hush of ink on paper, where truth ought raise its head and speak without fear, I have long lied.

no classes or exams, just acres of time in which to research and write—had swiftly revealed itself to be a glorified form of orphanhood.

He took it between his fingers, bore down with his bruised knuckle on its ridges, and like a miner picking his way toward an unknown destination began to write—slowly, steadily, filling the void with work. Was that what sadness did to a man?

Writing, it was like a heavenly balm, it was like the flowing out of deep waters, it was like the lifting of a load from the spirit; it brought with it a sense of relief, of assuagement. One could say things in writing without feeling self-conscious, without feeling shy and ashamed and foolish -- one could even write of the days of young Nelson, smiling a very little as one did so.