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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"I think I've got my business notions and my sense for that sort of thing from my dad. My dad never had a chance to go to school. He couldn't read and write. But he was so smart. He was just one of those people that could just make the most of anything and everything that he had to work with."
"My hand is very tired but I want to go on writing. I keep resting and thinking. All day I have been two people - the me imprisoned in yesterday and the me out here on the mound; and now there is a third me trying to get in - the me in what is going to happen next."
"The key to all knowledge comes in words of just one syllable, apparently.... There's only the last page left to write on. I'll fill it with words of just one syllable. I love. I have loved. I will love."
"I can write a song in about an hour if it's a simple country song."
"I write for myself things that I've gone through."
"So many of my relatives didn't get a chance to go to school, and my own Daddy couldn't read or write."
"A lot of my own relatives didn't get to go to school because we were mountain people. You have to get out and work and help feed the family. My own dad couldn't read and write. And my dad was very proud of me."
"I used to try to write a song a day. I've been so busy lately."
"Music lives in me. Life is a song to me. I have the gift of rhyme, and I'm always trying to write and rhyme. Music is just natural everyday occurrence with me."
"I write a little something every day, even though I don't write a song [every day]. Everything inspires me. I'll come up with a line, or somebody will say something that will trigger something."
"I write what I write, say what I say, 'cause I feel what I feel, and if I did it different, it would make me a liar! So I'd rather be an honest person than a good liar."
"I love writing every song I can like a little mini movie. I like to have a character, or some characters, and really paint a picture with the song."
"I don't think I'm a great actress. I think I can act or I can react. Coming from a musical background and being a dramatic singer and writer, when I write stuff I really feel it. So I sing it like it comes from here. That's how I do the acting."
"I write anywhere. I'm always banging around on the dashboard. Whatever I'm doing. I can make music out of anything. Whenever a song hits me, I'll pick some sort of melody or rhythm out on it, and kind of enhance the song."
"Only the margin left to write on now. I love you, I love you, I love you."
"I don't want to see any art-writing gobbledygook or overblown words in an essay about me. If a smaller, simpler word will do - use it."
"The books people are writing today, they're too long. You get a little bit of plot, and then pages and pages of Creative Writing. They teach classes in how to do this. They should teach classes in how to stop!"
"The more I think about our species the more I think we just do stuff and make up explanations later when asked. But it's not true that I would rather write than read. I would rather read than write. To be honest I would rather hang upside down in a bucket than write."
"It takes an awful lot of time to not write a book."
"I am fascinated by religion. (That's a completely different thing from believing in it!) It has had such an incalculably huge effect on human affairs. What is it? What does it represent? Why have we invented it? How does it keep going? What will become of it? I love to keep poking and prodding at it. I've thought about it so much over the years that that fascination is bound to spill over into my writing."
