Samuel Johnson, 1709-1784

Composition is, for the most part, an act of slow diligence to which the mind is dragged by necessity or resolution.

Winston Churchill, 1874-1965

History will be kind to me – for I intend to write it.

Isaac Bashevis Singer, 1904-91

The wastepaper basket is the writer's best friend.

Dorothy Parker, 1893-1967

This is not a book that should be tossed lightly aside. It should be hurled with great force.

Ursula K. Le Guin, 1929-

The unread story is not a story; it is little black marks on wood pulp. The reader, reading it, makes it live: a live thing, a story.

Louise Brooks, 1906-85

Writing is 1 percent inspiration, and 99 percent elimination.

Friedrich Nietzsche, 1844-1900

My ambition is to say in ten sentences what everyone else says in an entire book.

Elmore Leonard,1925-

My most important piece of advice to all you would-be writers: when you write, try to leave out all the parts readers skip.

Gloria Steinem, 1934-

Writing is the only thing that, when I do it, I don't feel I should be doing something else.

Truman Capote, 1924-84

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

Blaise Pascal, 1623-62

I have made this letter longer, because I have not had the time to make it shorter.

Toni Morrison, 1931-

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

Lord Acton, 1834-1902

Learn as much by writing as by reading.

Moses Hadas, 1900-1966

Thank you for sending me your book. I shall waste no time reading it.

Robert Heinlein, 1907-88

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

Flannery O’Connor, 1925-64

Everywhere I go, I'm asked if the universities stifle writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them.

Jack London, 1876-1916

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

Madeleine L’Engle, 1918-

Inspiration usually comes during work, rather than before it.

Wilson Mizner, 1876-1933

When you take stuff from one writer, it's plagiarism. But when you take it from many writers, it's research.

Thomas Mann, 1875-1955

A writer is a person for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.

Kingsley Amis, 1922-95

If you can't annoy somebody, there's little point in writing.

Walter Bagehot, 1826-1877

The reason so few good books are written is that so few people who can write know anything.

Robert Frost, 1874-1963

No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader.

Richard Peck

Writing is communication, not self-expression. Nobody in this world wants to read your diary except your mother.

Jessamyn West, 1902-84

Writing is so difficult that I feel that writers, having had their hell on earth, will escape all punishment hereafter.

Benjamin Franklin, 1706-90

Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.

Samuel Johnson, 1709-1784

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

Susan Sontag, 1933-2004

Reading, the love of reading, is what makes you dream of becoming a writer.

Oscar Wilde, 1854-1900

I was working on the proof of one of my poems all the morning, and took out a comma. In the afternoon I put it back again.

Isaac Asimov, 1920-92

If the doctor told me I had six minutes to live, I'd type a little faster.

Ezra Pound, 1885-1972

Literature is news that STAYS news.

Agatha Christie, 1890-1976

I've always believed in writing without a collaborator, because where two people are writing the same book, each believes he gets all the worry and only half the royalties.

Cyril Connolly, 1903-74

Literature is the art of writing something that will be read twice; journalism what will be grasped at once.

Albert Camus, 1913-60

Bad authors write with respect to an inner context that the reader cannot know.

Molière, 1622-1673

I always do the first line well, but I have trouble doing the others.

Katherine Anne Porter, 1890-1980

Most people won’t realize that writing is a craft. You have to take your apprenticeship in it like anything else.

John Steinbeck, 1902-68

The profession of book writing makes horse racing seem like a solid, stable business.

Alexander Pope, 1688-1744

True ease in writing comes from art, not chance,As those move easiest who have learned to dance.

Don Marquis, 1878-1937

i never think at all when i write –nobody can do two things at the same timeand do them both well.

E. M. Forster, 1879-1970

How do I know what I think until I see what I say?

Anais Nin, 1903-77

We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospection.

Mark Twain, 1835-1910

Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn’t.

Pliny the Younger, 61-105 A.D.

There is nothing to write about, you say. Well then, write and let me know just this – that there is nothing to write about.

Rebecca West, 1892-1983

Journalism – an ability to meet the challenge of filling the space.

Samuel Johnson, 1709-1784

Your manuscript is both good and original, but the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good.

Lillian Hellman, 1905-1984

If I had to give young writers advice, I would say don’t listen to writers talking about writing or themselves.

Raymond Chandler, 1870-1959

When in doubt, have a man come through the door with a gun in his hand.

Ernest Hemingway, 1899-1961

The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shock-proof s**t detector.

Easy writing makes curst hard reading.

Richard Brinsley Sheridan, 1751-1816

Writing is the supreme solace.

W. Somerset Maugham, 1874-1965

Chamfort, 1741-94

Most of today’s books have an air of having been written in one day from books read the night before.

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

Herman Melville, 1819-91

The first chapter sells the book. The last chapter sells the next book.

Mickey Spillane, 1918-

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

Willa Cather, 1873-1947

There is no subject so old that something new cannot be said about it.

Fyodor Dostoevsky, 1821-81

Writing, when properly managed, is but a different name for conversation.

Laurence Sterne, 1713-68

There is in writing the constant joy of sudden discovery, happy accident.

H. L. Mencken, 1880-1956