Quotes on Writing

"The problem with fiction, it has to be plausible. That’s not true with non-fiction.” ~ Tom Wolfe

“Fiction is a lie, and good fiction is the truth inside the lie.” ~ Stephen King

"Begin with an individual and you find that you have created a type; begin with a type and you find that you have created — nothing.” ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald

“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” ~ Ernest Hemingway

“If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.” ~ Toni Morrison

“No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader.” ~ Robert Frost

“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

“Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.” ~ Anton Chekhov

“Tomorrow may be hell, but today was a good writing day, and on the good writing days nothing else matters.” ~ Neil Gaiman

“I write to give myself strength. I write to be the characters that I am not. I write to explore all the things I'm afraid of. ” ~ Joss Whedon

“Write the kind of story you would like to read. People will give you all sorts of advice about writing, but if you are not writing something you like, no one else will like it either.” ~ Meg Cabot

“I haven't any right to criticize books, and I don't do it except when I hate them. I often want to criticize Jane Austen, but her books madden me so that I can't conceal my frenzy from the reader; and therefore I have to stop every time I begin. Every time I read Pride and Prejudice I want to dig her up and beat her over the skull with her own shin-bone.” ~ Mark Twain

“You know, it's hard work to write a book. I can't tell you how many times I really get going on an idea, then my quill breaks. Or I spill ink all over my writing tunic.” ~ Ellen DeGeneres,

“Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.” ~ John Steinbeck

“A small daily task, if it be really daily, will beat the labours of a spasmodic Hercules.” ~ Anthony Trollope

“You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.” ~ Jack London