Quotes About Writing

It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer.

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

The only sensible ends of literature are, first, the pleasurable toil of writing; second, the gratification of one's family and friends; and lastly, the solid cash.

It's extremely seldom that anybody wants me to change what I've written about them. Generally I portray them in a good light, if they're friends.

A good writer possesses not only his own spirit but also the spirit of his friends.

If you can't annoy somebody, there's little point in writing.

The reasons that drive me to write are many and the most important are the most secret, I think. Perhaps most of all this: to put something out of death's reach.

I have almost completed a long novel, but it is unpublishable until my death and England's.

My thoughts are with you all. Forever conscious of the vast, absurd universe and writing my eternal story I shall remain dead, but dreaming.

I don't know who to write to anymore... They've changed their souls, that's a way to be disloyal, to forget, to keep talking about something else.

I know nothing new except that Herr Gellert, the Leipzig poet, is dead, and has written no more poetry since his death.

Typography has one plain duty before it and that is to convey information in writing. No argument or consideration can absolve typography from this duty.

Of all the achievements of the human mind, the birth of the alphabet is the most momentous.

Writing is not a series of strokes, but space, divided into characteristic shapes by strokes.

I write pretty much every day, but I don't have any desire to publish anything.

A recurring ideal, I find, is that of simplicity. At times there comes the desire to write with great precision and clarity, words so simple and moving that they bring tears to the eyes.

Mere literary talent is common; what is rare is endurance, the continuing desire to work hard at writing.

I write because it gives me the greatest possible artistic pleasure to write. If my work pleases the few I am gratified. As for the mob, I have no desire to be a popular novelist. It is far too easy.

An editor is a person who knows more about writing than writers do but who has escaped the terrible desire to write.

Everything a writer learns about the art or craft of fiction takes just a little away from his need or desire to write at all. In the end he knows all the tricks and has nothing to say.

I don't have the desire to be the best standup in the UK but I do have the desire to be the best at everything else I do in terms of writing and acting.

I cannot write any sort of story unless there is at least one character in it for whom I have physical desire.

Obsession led me to write. It's been that way with every book I've ever written. I become completely consumed by a theme, by characters, by a desire to meet a challenge.

I used to do horseback riding in the South, and it was just things I'd be pasting. I think my diaries was just an infantile desire to record things. I liked saving things instead of writing.