24 Quotes that Will Inspire You to Write More

1. Be ruthless about protecting writing days, i.e., do not cave in to endless requests to have
essential and long overdue meetings on those days. J.K. Rowling
2. If something isnt working, if you have a story that youve built and its blocked and you cant
figure it out, take out your favorite scene, or your very best idea or set-piece, and cut it. Its
brutal, but sometimes inevitable. Joss Whedon
3. You dont write because you want to say something. You write because you have something to
say. F. Scott Fitzgerald
4. There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you. Maya Angelou
5. A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions,
thus:
1. What am I trying to say?
2. What words will express it?
3. What image or idiom will make it clearer?
4. Is this image fresh enough to have an effect?
And he will probably ask himself two more:
1. Could I put it more shortly?
2. Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly? George Orwell
6. Each writer is born with a repertory company in his head. Shakespeare has perhaps 20 players.
I have 10 or so, and thats a lot. As you get older, you become more skillful at casting them.
Gore Vidal
7. No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the
reader. Robert Frost
8. If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it. Or, if proper usage gets in the way, it may have to go. I cant
allow what we learned in English composition to disrupt the sound and rhythm of the narrative.
Elmore Leonard
9. The first sentence cant be written until the final sentence is written. Joyce Carol Oates
10. I would advise anyone who aspires to a writing career that before developing his talent he
would be wise to develop a thick hide. Harper Lee
11. Just write every day of your life. Read intensely. Then see what happens. Most of my friends
who are put on that diet have very pleasant careers. Ray Bradbury
12. If theres a book that you want to read, but it hasnt been written yet, then you must write it.
Toni Morrison
13. The reason that fiction is more interesting than any other form of literature, to those who
really like to study people, is that in fiction the author can really tell the truth without
humiliating himself. Eleanor Roosevelt
14. Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: do not use semicolons. They are transvestite
hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show youve been to college.
Kurt Vonnegut
15. We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect. Anais Nin
16. If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldnt brood. Id type a little faster.
Isaac Asimov
17. I know I was writing stories when I was five. I dont know what I did before that. Just loafed, I
suppose. P.G.Wodehouse
18. The best time for planning a book is while youre doing the dishes. Agatha Christie
19. This is how you do it: you sit down at the keyboard and you put one word after another until its
done. Its that easy, and that hard. Neil Gaiman
20. If you want to be a writer, you have to write every day You dont go to a well once but daily.
Walter Mosley
21. A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people. Thomas
Mann
22. Im not sure a bad person can write a good book. If art doesnt make us better, then what on
earth is it for. Alice Walker
23. There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are. W.
Somerset Maugham
24. I can shake everything off as I write. My sorrows disappear, my courage is reborn. Anne
Frank