Writing - Quotes

To finish is sadness to a writer – a little death. He puts the last word down and it is done. But it isn't really done. The story goes on and leaves the writer behind, for no story is ever done. - John Steinbeck

To leave the reader free to decide what your work means, that's the real art; it makes the work inexhaustible. - Ursula K. le Guin

To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme. - Herman Melville

To this day, if you ask me how I became a writer, I cannot give you an answer. To this day, if you ask me how a book is written, I cannot answer. For long periods, if I didn't know that somehow in the past I had written a book, I would have given up. - V. S. Naipaul

Trouble not thyself about the fate of thy writings: if what thou hast writ be worth preserving, no flood, however mighty, can sweep it away; if it be worthless, no ink, however prepared, can make it indelible. - Ivan Panin

True ease in writing comes from art, not chance, as those move easiest who have learn'd to dance. - Alexander Pope

We all often feel like we are pulling teeth, even those writers whose prose ends up being the most natural and fluid. The right words and sentences just do not come pouring out like ticker tape most of the time. - Anne Lamott

We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out. - Ray Bradbury

Wearing down seven number-two pencils is a good day's work. - Ernest Hemingway

Well, the secret to writing is writing. It's only a secret to people who don't want to hear it. Writing is how you be a writer. - Ursula K. le Guin

Well, there are certain stock words that I have found myself using a great deal. When I become aware of them, it is an alarm signal meaning I am falling back on something that has served in the past – it is a sign of not thinking at the present moment, not that there is anything intrinsically bad about certain words or phrases. - John Ashbery

What I had to face, the very bitter lesson that everyone who wants to write has got to learn, was that a thing may in itself be the finest piece of writing one has ever done, and yet have absolutely no place in the manuscript one hopes to publish. - Thomas Wolfe

What separates the professionally successful ... from all the rest is their ability to stay steady, to have stamina. It is one thing to write a good sentence, another to write a good book. - Katy Lederer

What you're trying to do when you write is to crowd the reader out of his own space and occupy it with yours, in a good cause. You're trying to take over his sensibility and deliver an experience that moves from mere information. - Robert Stone

When a good writer is having fun, the audience is almost always having fun too. - Stephen King