"I'll never retire. They'll have to take my computer out of my cold, dead hands. I'm addicted to writing. I feel physically unwell if I'm not doing it."
Read quote
3 likes
Writing quotes
Writing
30.7K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
Explore further
Topics related to Writing
Browse quotes that often appear alongside writing — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
Quote collection
Writing quotes (page 325 of 1537)
Follow a thought to its author, or read the full quote page.
"When I write a book, I don't have a plan or an outline. The characters move the action, and the action develops the characters. When I write a book, I become an actor, really, taking the role of the person who is speaking or acting at the time, and so their reactions to whatever they see are my reactions."
Read quote
3 likes
"My guiltiest pleasure in life is 'America's Funniest Home Videos.' I watch them all - old, new - I don't care. Despite how bad the writing is on the show. The people getting hit and hurt, that's hilarious."
Read quote
3 likes
"Black actors on the road, flying around the country working as poets. Those people are inspirations for millions of kids who write."
Read quote
3 likes
"I dread the day I leave [Doctor Who], because then I'll have to go back to writing bedrooms and offices and pubs. And maybe a field, if I'm lucky."
Read quote
3 likes
"I hate the idea that I have to represent any particular section of society; I just write good telly, that's all."
Read quote
3 likes
"I don't know about writing. It's quite lonely. You have to have a lot of patience with yourself."
Read quote
3 likes
"It sounds like I'm channeling or something, and I don't really fully understand what it is. I'll get a piece of paper and write down what I think is coming to me. And I'll play it once. Whether it's being recorded or not, I can then usually remember it for a sometimes shocking amount of time."
Read quote
3 likes
"Writing and creating, those things come to me on their own. I feel like... you sort of summon them and it's like allowing the universe to enter your heart in an entirely different way to what it normally does. It's like inviting that energy of the universe to enter into your craft in a way where it has a meaning."
Read quote
3 likes
"There definitely isn't a structure anymore to how I get ideas. A lot of times I'll just write down a phrase, or I'll have an idea that's attached to just a few chords. Other times, it's work."
Read quote
3 likes
"I got on the phone with the president of my label and I said, "Obviously, I write songs in a lot of styles and play a lot of different kinds of music. We're getting toward the end of our business collaboration. If you could envision a record that you wanted to hear from me, what kind of record would it be?" It wasn't like asking him to fill an order, it was really just a conversation. For all the things I'd ever asked him, this was one thing I'd never asked, and I don't know why. So I was curious. And the thing that he was most interested in hearing was a solo record."
Read quote
3 likes
"Most of my songs are pretty sketchy. There's not a lot of bass sections. I don't write big bridges. Sometimes I'll try. But it's hard for me to focus that way, because I always think it's more interesting to just see what will happen next."
Read quote
3 likes
"Being a rock musician is already like ego-tripping hardcore. You're self-consumed, and you're always thinking. It's really easy to say, "I'm going to write a song about this situation, and when I'm done, everyone will care." To everybody else, that's ego-tripping."
Read quote
3 likes
"I like things that reach a little further and are a little more abstract, but I don't think that's what I do naturally well. How I write naturally is probably what's furthest from me, and the most removed from what I understand."
Read quote
3 likes
"There will never again be a day exactly like today. There will never again be a moment exactly like this moment. After my next birthday, I will never again be the age I am right now. After midnight tonight, today will be part of history. Someday I'll be dying and I'll wish I'd done all the things I want to do now. Someday I'll be dead and I won't be able to do anything. But today, right now, I'm alive. And yet I'm writing nonsense on the back of my literature book. But I'm alive. And yet I'm just sitting here. But I'm alive."
Read quote
3 likes
"The secret to writing sound effects is having a room you can be alone in, trying to make the sounds yourself, and seeing what comes out. It's similar to if you're writing a character talking with their mouth full: the only way I know to transcribe that is to stuff my fist in my mouth and write down what sounds I make when I try to talk."
Read quote
3 likes
"What I’ve learned most clearly from blogs is that the majority of them write about the problems from the outside for a reason—because they are missing the abilities that allow people to move to the inside."
Read quote
3 likes
"Secretly, in studies and attics and schoolrooms all over America, people must be writing."
Read quote
3 likes
"Then I decided I would spend the summer writing a novel. That would fix a lot of people."
Read quote
3 likes
"Can a selfish egocentric jealous and unimaginative female write a damn thing worthwhile?"
Read quote
3 likes