Writing quotes
30.7K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside writing — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"Reading and writing are in themselves subversive acts. What they subvert is the notion that things have to be the way they are, that you are alone, that no one has ever felt the way you have."
"As much as you don't want to say you are a vengeful person, when someone drags your name through the mud and plays press games and puts things out there like that, you are kind of like, alright. US Weekly will be gone next week, the songs I am writing won't."
"A person who can write a long letter with ease, cannot write ill."
"And if I had not a letter to write myself, I might sit by you and admire the evenness of your writing, as another young lady once did. But I have an aunt too, who must not be longer neglected."
"Shakespeare was a man who wrote poetry. I'm a man who writes poetry. Why not compare yourself to the best?"
"I either write songs on guitar, or... I don't ever have a keyboard with me, but like, my keyboard on the laptop."
"Commissions suit me. They set limits. Jean Marais dared me to write play in which he would not speak in the first act, would weep for joy in the second and in the last would fall backward down a flight of stairs."
"The spirit of creation is the spirit of contradiction. It is the breakthrough of appearances toward an unknown reality."
"I considered calmly that I was born to write."
"When my relations with the Communist Party gave me the necessary perspective I decided to write my autobiography. I wanted to show how a man can pass from literature held sacred to action which nevertheless remains that of an intellectual."
"When we hold onto the negative in ourselves it comes with endless guilt. We hold onto a lifetime of floating visions and regrets about what we should have done or should have become. Conscience recognizes wrong and tries to atone. But guilt turns into resentment. Conscience brings us closer to each other; guilt drives us apart. Create a new feeling. Every time guilt settles in your stomach, write "I forgive" on a piece of paper. Send it up the chimney, tear it up and flush it, put it in the garbage. Don't eat it."
"The aftermath of the war is what inspired us to write many of our plays. The whole reason for our writing Inherit the Wind was that we were appalled at the blacklisting. We were appalled at thought control."
"I think enthusiasm is the answer to passionate writing."
"One can write out of love or hate. Hate tells one a great deal about a person. Love makes one become the person. Love, contrary to legend, is not half as blind, at least for writing purposes, as hate. Love can see the evil and not cease to be love. Hate cannot see the good and remain hate. The writer, writing out of hatred, will, thus, paint a far more partial picture than if he had written out of love."
"I thought, frankly, that it would be more pleasant to write a memoir than it was."
"I feel lucky that I even have the luxury to write about feeling lonely or feeling confused. When you think about climate change that means that we won't have an Earth to be lonely on."
"My great joy is to give form to reality. Music is a great release, a great enjoyment to me. Eventually I'd like to write something of great importance. That's my ambition - to write something worthwhile."
"There is only one plot-things are not what they seem."
"Really I'm just an actor. The only difference between me and those cats in Hollywood is that I write my own script."
"All I'm writing is just what I feel, that's all. I just keep it almost naked. And probably the words are so bland."
