It is a fact often observed, that men have written good verses under the inspiration of passion, who cannot write well under other circumstances.
Ralph Waldo EmersonThe book is not really the container for the book. The book itself is the narrative. It’s the thing that people create.
Jeff BezosI wasn’t trying to be an outlaw writer. I never heard of that term; somebody else made it up. But we were all outside the law: Kerouac, Miller, Burroughs, Ginsberg, Kesey; I didn’t have a gauge as to who was the worst outlaw. I just recognized allies: my people.
Hunter S. ThompsonIf you’re nice to me I’ll never write anything bad about you.
Amy WinehouseFiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn’t.
Mark TwainThe first real thought that I had of something that I might do was to write for car magazines, because I always had a car thing.
Jerry SeinfeldWriting and cookery are just two different means of communication.
Maya AngelouI didn’t have any agenda or plan when I started writing stuff.
David ByrneIn the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.
John SteinbeckI promised myself that I would write as well as I can, tell the truth, not to tell everything I know, but to make sure that everything I tell is true, as I understand it. And to use the eloquence which my language affords me.
Maya AngelouIf I could write directly on a typewriter or a computer, I would do it. But keyboards have always intimidated me. I’ve never been able to think clearly with my fingers in that position. A pen is a much more primitive instrument. You feel that the words are coming out of your body and then you dig the words into the page.
Paul AusterWriting’s just as natural to me as getting up and cooking breakfast.
Dolly PartonI was always very curious as a young man about why older writers who I met seemed so indifferent to what was going on, whereas I, in my 20s, was reading everything. Everything seemed important. But they were only interested in the writers they admired when they were young, and I didn’t understand it then, but now, now I understand it.
Paul AusterNever regret what you don’t write.
Abraham LincolnIf one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all.
Oscar WildeFor a true writer, each book should be a new beginning where he tries again for something that is beyond attainment. He should always try for something that has never been done or that others have tried and failed. Then sometimes, with great luck, he will succeed.
Ernest HemingwayI like being a writer.
Terry PratchettI really, truly believe that writing comes out of the body; of course, the mind is working as well, but it’s a double thing and that doubleness is united. I mean, you can’t separate persona from psyche; you just can’t do it.
Paul AusterI spent three days a week for 10 years educating myself in the public library, and it’s better than college. People should educate themselves – you can get a complete education for no money. At the end of 10 years, I had read every book in the library and I’d written a thousand stories.
Ray BradburyDickens, as you know, never got round to starting his home page.
Terry PratchettGood writing is like a windowpane.
George OrwellFor a long time, I had the idea that I would do a certain amount of work the best I could, and then I would reach a comfort zone, and I wouldn’t be pushed to write more. I would become a different person. It’s a surprise to me that this hasn’t happened. Your body ages, but your mind is the same.
Alice MunroI don’t care much for equations myself. This is partly because it is difficult for me to write them down, but mainly because I don’t have an intuitive feeling for equations.
Stephen HawkingParadise Lost is a book that, once put down, is very hard to pick up again.
Samuel JohnsonAnd you find as a writer there are certain spots on the planet where you write better than others, and I believe in that. And New Orleans is one of them.
Jimmy BuffettSatire lies about literary men while they live and eulogy lies about them when they die.
VoltaireEvery now and then I read a poem that does touch something in me, but I never turn to poetry for solace or pleasure in the way that I throw myself into prose.
J. K. RowlingI have the conviction that excessive literary production is a social offence.
George EliotThe writer must earn money in order to be able to live and to write, but he must by no means live and write for the purpose of making money.
Karl MarxAll I wanted to do was write – at the time, poems, and prose, too. I guess my ambition was simply to make money however I could to keep myself going in some modest way, and I didn’t need much, I was unmarried at the time, no children.
Paul AusterWrite in such a way as that you can be readily understood by both the young and the old, by men as well as women, even by children.
Ho Chi MinhDon’t be a writer; it’s a terrible way to live your life. There’s nothing to be gained from it but poverty and obscurity and solitude. So if you have a taste for all those things, which means that you really are burning to do it, then go ahead and do it. But don’t expect anything from anybody.
Paul AusterI ain’t never far away from a pencil and paper or a tape recorder.
Dolly PartonI only type every third night. I have no plan. My mind is a blank. I sit down. The typewriter gives me things I don’t even know I’m working on. It’s a free lunch. A free dinner. I don’t know how long it is going to continue, but so far there is nothing easier than writing.
Charles BukowskiDoing graphic novels is cool! It’s fun! You get to write something, and then see it visually page by page, panel by panel, working with the artist, you get to see it fleshed out.
Anthony BourdainWriting is my love. If you love something, you find a lot of time. I write for two hours a day, usually starting at midnight; at times, I start at 11.
A. P. J. Abdul KalamI don’t think about who the audience is for my books.
J. K. Rowling‚The New Yorker‘ was really my first experience with serious editing. Previously, I’d more or less just had copyediting with a few suggestions – not much.
Alice Munro‚Bellyache‘ is totally fictional. I like writing about things that aren’t real. The song is about not trusting anyone and then putting trust in yourself and realizing that you don’t know what you are doing, either. Or realizing that things you do with a group of people that you think are cool in the moment are ultimately all on you.
Billie EilishHell is empty and all the devils are here.
William ShakespearePoetry is finer and more philosophical than history; for poetry expresses the universal, and history only the particular.
AristotleI started out in life as a poet; I was only writing poetry all through my 20s. It wasn’t until I was about 30 that I got serious about writing prose. While I was writing poems, I would often divert myself by reading detective novels; I liked them.
Paul AusterPoetry comes from the highest happiness or the deepest sorrow.
A. P. J. Abdul KalamI just feel that ‚The Color Purple,‘ which was my 10th book, was a true gift from my ancestors.
Alice WalkerI think the reason my stories have been so successful is that I have a strong sense of metaphor.
Ray BradburyTalking is a hydrant in the yard and writing is a faucet upstairs in the house. Opening the first takes the pressure off the second.
Robert FrostI first had the idea of writing a popular book about the universe in 1982. My intention was partly to earn money to pay my daughter’s school fees.
Stephen HawkingIt is healthier, in any case, to write for the adults one’s children will become than for the children one’s ‚mature‘ critics often are.
Alice WalkerOne merit of poetry few persons will deny: it says more and in fewer words than prose.
VoltaireI’ve been trying to… Having been an English literary graduate, I’ve been trying to avoid the idea of doing art ever since. I think the idea of art kills creativity.
Douglas AdamsEven those who write against fame wish for the fame of having written well, and those who read their works desire the fame of having read them.
Blaise PascalTrue ease in writing comes from art, not chance, as those move easiest who have learn’d to dance.
Alexander PopeI do some kind of work, whether writing or painting or recording, on a daily basis. And it’s so essential that when I’m involved in the actual process, my so-called ‚real life‘ becomes almost incidental, which becomes worrying.
David BowieStand-up is hard. Or to keep it at a certain level is hard: I have no writers but me.
Jerry SeinfeldI don’t like to write like God. It is only because you never do it, though, that the critics think you can’t do it.
Ernest HemingwayReading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.
Francis BaconI wasn’t that great a chef, and I don’t think I’m that great a writer.
Anthony BourdainThe first book I ever really read was Plato’s ‚Republic,‘ and then I had to go over that five times or something.
Huey NewtonI think ‚The Color Purple‘ is so bursting with love, the need for connection, the showing of the need for connection around the globe.
Alice WalkerI don’t control my writing – it controls me.
Ray Bradbury