Two weeks ago, I wrote a blog post with quotes about traveling and warned that more  might follow. And sure enough, here I am today with more quotes. This week they are all about writing. And you may notice that almost every one of these is from authors. I think you will admit that there are some great writing quotes here, for both writers and readers. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did:

  • “If you want to change the world, pick up your pen and write.”   Martin Luther (1483 – 1546)
  • “The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.”  Thomas Jefferson (1743 – 1826)
  • “There are books of which the backs and covers are by far the best parts.”  Charles Dickens (1812 – 1870)
  • “How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.”  Henry David Thoreau (1817 – 1862)
  • “The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter. ’Tis the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.”  Mark Twain (1835 – 1910)
  • “My task, which I am trying to achieve is, by the power of the written word, to make you hear, to make you feel–it is, before all, to make you see.”  Joseph Conrad (1857 – 1924)
  • “Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.”  Anton Chekhov (1860 – 1904)
  •  “There is something delicious about writing the first words of a story. You never quite know where they’ll take you.”  Beatrix Potter (1866 – 1943)
  •  “A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.  G. K. Chesterton (1874 – 1936)
  • “Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.”  Pablo Picasso (1881 – 1973)
  • “Don’t bend; don’t water it down; don’t try to make it logical; don’t edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly.”  Frank Kafka (1883 – 1924)
  • “The best time for planning a book is while you’re doing the dishes.”  Agatha Christie (1890 – 1976)
  •  “Cut out all these exclamation points. An exclamation point is like laughing at your own joke.”  F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896 – 1940)
  • “Read, read, read. Read everything — trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You’ll absorb it. Then write. If it’s good, you’ll find out. If it’s not, throw it out of the window.”  William Faulkner (1897 – 1962)
  •  “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”  Ernest Hemingway (1899 – 1961)
  • “My aim is to put down on paper what I see and what I feel in the best and simplest way.”  Ernest Hemingway (1899 – 1961)
  • “The hard part about writing a novel is finishing it.”  Ernest Hemingway (1899 – 1961)
  • “All that I hope to say in books, all that I ever hope to say, is that I love the world.”  E. B. White (1899 – 1985)
  • “Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.”  John Steinbeck (1902 – 1968)
  • “A story has no beginning or end: arbitrarily one chooses that moment of experience from which to look back or from which to look ahead.”  Graham Greene (1904 – 1991)
  • “A person is a fool to become a writer. His only compensation is absolute freedom. He has no master except his own soul, and that, I am sure, is why he does it.”  Roald Dahl (1916 – 1990)
  • “You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children.”  Madeleine L’Engle (1918 – 2007)
  •  “There is no real ending. It’s just the place where you stop the story.”  Frank Herbert (1920 – 1986)
  •  “Your intuition knows what to write, so get out of the way.”  Ray Bradbury (1920 – 2012)
  •  “You must write every single day of your life… You must lurk in libraries and climb the stacks like ladders to sniff books like perfumes and wear books like hats upon your crazy heads… may you be in love every day for the next 20,000 days. And out of that love, remake a world.”  Ray Bradbury (1920 – 2012)
  • “The true alchemists do not change lead into gold; they change the world into words.” William H. Gass (1924 – )
  •  “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”  Maya Angelou (1928 – 2014)
  • “If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.”  Toni Morrison (1931 – )
  • “Perhaps I write for no one. Perhaps for the same person children are writing for when they scrawl their names in the snow.”  Margaret Atwood (1939 – )
  • “Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on.” Louis L’Amour (1942 – )
  • “If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.” Stephen King (1947 – )
  •  “The scariest moment is always just before you start.” Stephen King (1947 – )
  •  “If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.” Stephen King (1947 – )
  •  “Description begins in the writer’s imagination, but should finish in the reader’s.” Stephen King (1947 – )
  •  “I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.” Douglas Adams (1952 – 2001)

Again, I hope some of these quotes got you thinking!

Happy writing and reading!

Cathy