Quotes about Writing

Everything I've ever done, in the writing world, has been to expand articulation, rather than to close it.

The only way to own what I know is to write it and let you read it

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

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

I don't wait to be struck by lightning and don't need certain slants of light in order to write.

I never work better than when I am inspired by anger; when I am angry, I can write, pray, and preach well, for then my whole temperament is quickened, my understanding sharpened, and all mundane vexations and temptations depart.

I read my own books sometimes to cheer me when it is hard to write, and then I remember that it was always difficult, and how nearly impossible it was sometimes.

A book or poem which has no pity in it had better not be written.

For me, writing is the only thing that passes the three tests of metier: (i) when I'm doing it, I don't feel that I should be doing something else instead; (2) it produces a sense of accomplishment and, once in a while, pride; and (3) it's frightening.

Read over your compositions, and when you meet a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.

We like that a sentence should read as if its author, had he held a plough instead of a pen, could have drawn a furrow deep and straight to the end.

As for my next book, I am going to hold myself from writing it till I have it impending in me: grown heavy in my mind like a ripe pear, pendant, gravid, asking to be cut or it will fall.