Quotes About Writing

Learn. Ceaselessly. Learn to code, to write persuasively, to understand new technologies, to bring out the best in your team, to find underused resources and to spot patterns.

The thing to remember when you're writing is, it's not whether or not what you put on paper is true. It's whether it wakes a truth in your reader.

I write to get ideas out of my head

Writing is something you Do and not discuss. Talk is cheap, wishes are free and a fool is included with every purchase. So spend your time wisely.

When it comes time to sit down and write the next book, you're deathly afraid that you're not up to the task. That was certainly the case with me after Snow Falling on Cedars.

Someone who can write aphorisms should not fritter away his time in essays.

You know that I write slowly. This is chiefly because I am never satisfied until I have said as much as possible in a few words, and writing briefly takes far more time than writing at length.

For your information, a good novel can change the world. Keep that in mind before you attempt to sit down at a typewriter. Never waste time on something you don't believe in yourself.

Journalist: a person without any ideas but with an ability to express them; a writer whose skill is improved by a deadline: the more time he has, the worse he writes.

I began writing 'Matterhorn' in 1975 and for more than 30 years I kept working on my novel in my spare time, unable to get an agent or publisher to even read the manuscript.

There are many things I've written that I didn't really understand until a long time later.

In brief, I spend half my time trying to learn the secrets of other writers - to apply them to the expression of my own thoughts.

For me, a play is a form of writing which isn't complete until it is interpreted by actors. But it's still a form of writing. And so most of my time is spent thinking about how to write a sentence.

The only time I know that something is true is the moment I discover it in the act of writing.

Write a book you'd like to read. If you wouldn't read it, why would anybody else? Don't write for a perceived audience or market. It may well have vanished by the time your book's ready.

You do it a day at a time. You write as well as you can, you put it in the mail, you leave it under submission, you never leave it at home.

I would spend my time telling stories or writing them.

I've always spent more time with a smile on my face than not, but the thing is, I don't write about it.

Writers are not just people who sit down and write. They hazard themselves. Every time you compose a book your composition of yourself is at stake.

I get over a hundred letters a day from all over the world, from children and parents, and it's a wonder I ever have time to write books, let alone speak!

Writing is hard, even for authors who do it all the time.

The writer operates at a peculiar crossroads where time and place and eternity somehow meet. His problem is to find that location.

Taking on challenging projects is the way that one grows and extends one's range as a writer, one's technical command, so I consider the time well-spent

The first Chapter Law is, "Don't spend much time on it. You're going to have to rewrite it."