Writing From Famous Authors Quotes

You have to write the book that wants to be written.

Any writer worth his salt writes to please himself.

The two most engaging powers of an author are to make new things familiar, familiar things new.

Read, read read. Read everything.

Any writer worth his salt writes to please himself...It's a self-exploratory operation that is endless. An exorcism of not necessarily his demon, but of his divine discontent.

It's none of their business that you have to learn how to write. Let them think you were born that way.

Writers are always selling somebody out.

Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.

Most writers regard the truth as their most valuable possession, and therefore are most economical in its use.

Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere.

First, find out what your hero wants, then just follow him.

Writing is easy. All you have to do is cross out the wrong words.

All the information you need can be given in dialogue.

There's no money in poetry, but then there's no poetry in money, either.

There's no such thing as writer's block. That was invented by people in California who couldn't write.

My own experience is that once a story has been written, one has to cross out the beginning and the end. It is there that we authors do most of our lying.

Begin with an individual, and before you know it you find that you have created a type; begin with a type, and you find that you have created - nothing.

To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme.

Most of the basic material a writer works with is acquired before the age of fifteen.

If you don't have the time to read, you don't have the time or the tools to write.

The greatest part of a writer's time is spent in reading in order to write. A man will turn over half a library to make a book.

A man will turn over half a library to make one book.

It took me fifteen years to discover I had no talent for writing, but I couldn't give it up because by that time I was too famous.

Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.

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.

A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.

Get it down. Take chances. It may be bad, but that's the only way you can do anything really good.

The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say.

Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.

There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.

Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards.

Easy reading is damn hard writing.

Don't try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say.

Close the door. Write with no one looking over your shoulder. Don't try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say. It's the one and only thing you have to offer.

And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.

Substitute "damn" every time you're inclined to write "very"; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.

When I sit down to write a book, I do not say to myself, 'I am going to produce a work of art.' I write it because there is some lie that I want to expose, some fact to which I want to draw attention, and my initial concern is to get a hearing.

I believe more in the scissors than I do in the pencil.

I can’t write five words but that I change seven.

The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.

The scariest moment is always just before you start.

You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.

Science fiction writers, I am sorry to say, really do not know anything.

There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.

If there's a book you really want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.

The road to hell is paved with leeks and potatoes

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

The road to hell is paved with works-in-progress.

The road to Hell is paved with unbought stuffed dogs.

The road to hell is paved with adverbs.