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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"The painter paints, the musician makes music, the novelist writes novels. But I believe that we all have some influence, not because of the fact that one is an artist, but because we are citizens."
"Writing in English is like throwing mud at a wall."
"Tormented by the cursed ambition always to put a whole book in a page, a whole page in a sentence, and this sentence in a word. I am speaking of myself."
"Before using a fine word, make a place for it."
"There's also a lot of stuff that's not really good that gets written so I say to people who are excited about writing for the first time that if you think you have it, go for it because there are people that achieve it and don't have it."
"Style in painting is the same as in writing; a power over materials, whether words or colors, by which conceptions or sentiments are conveyed."
"Productivity is a relative matter. And it's really insignificant: What is ultimately important is a writer's strongest books. It may be the case that we all must write many books in order to achieve a few lasting ones - just as a young writer or poet might have to write hundreds of poems before writing his first significant one."
"Writing is a consequence of having been 'haunted' by material. Why this is, no one knows."
"My writing is full of lives I might have led."
"The use of language is all we have to pit against death and silence."
"Don't try to anticipate an ideal reader - or any reader. He/she might exist - but is reading someone else."
"You are writing for your contemporaries - not for Posterity. If you are lucky, your contemporaries will become Posterity."
"You need so much energy and encouragement to write that if someone says something negative, some of that energy goes."
"My writing is often a way of 'bearing witness' for others who lack the education and the opportunity to tell their own stories, so I hope that my writing won't be affected too much by my personal life."
"If I'm writing, I'll say something metaphorical or approximate, whereas scientists are very precise."
"The appeal of writing is primarily the investigation of mystery."
"On the elusive gift of blending austerity of craft with elasticity of allure."
"When you are writing literary writing, you are communicating something subtextual with emotions and poetry. The prose has to have a voice; it's not just typing. It takes a while to get that voice."
"while there are 'women writers' there are not, and have never been, 'men writers.' This is an empty category, a class without specimens; for the noun 'writer' - the very verb 'writing' - always implies masculinity."
"It seems disingenuous to ask a writer why she, or he, is writing about a violent subject when the world and history are filled with violence."
