Favorite Writing Quotes

Here are some of my favorites:

"If the book is good, is about something that you know, and is truly written, and reading it over you see that this is so, you can let the boys yip and the noise will have that pleasant sound coyotes make on a very cold night when they are out in the snow and you are in your own cabin that you have built or paid for with your work." ~ Ernest Hemingway

"The artist, like the God of the creation, remains within or behind or beyond or above his handiwork, invisible, refined out of existence, indifferent, paring his fingernails." ~ James Joyce

"A serious writer would gladly swap 100 readers now for 10 readers in 10 years or one reader in 100 years." ~ Flannery O'Connor

"If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn't brood. I'd type a little faster." ~ Isaac Asimov

"Fiction is the truth inside the lie." ~ Stephen King

"Writing ought either to be the manufacture of stories for which there is a market demand -- a business as safe and commendable as making soap or breakfast foods -- or it should be an art, which is always a search for something for which there is no market demand, something new and untried, where the values are intrinsic and have nothing to do with standardized values." ~ Willa Cather

I read this on Ray's blog, and since I'm always feeling guilty for either running after money or ruining my life in the name of art, I've put this as a post-it on my desktop to look at everyday.

"Art is wonderful and grand and all that, but if no one sees your art, who are you really serving? I want to get paid for my art, so I can afford to continue to show you my art."

A balanced verdict on the business vs. art debate, if I ever saw one.

I used to have a huge file of quotes, and read through them when I had writer's block (and then my computer died).

There is one I love actually, it's from Star Trek: DS9, IIRC, the episode was called "Far Beyond the Stars" where Sisko is/imagining he is a writer. At the end he asks which was real and Kai Opaka says: "You are the dreamer, and the dream."

I like it because it speaks to that (teeny-weeny) belief that all this exists somewhere.

'The only difference between a published author and an unpublished author, is the published one didn't give up.'

I don't know who said this, and I probably haven't worded it as per the actual quote, but the sentiment has helped me along during some of the bleaker moments.

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. Oscar Wilde
Minds are like parachutes, they only work when they're open. Author unknown.

None of us will ever accomplish anything excellent or commanding except when he listens to this whisper which is heard by him alone. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Write a little every day, without hope and without despair.

--Isak Dinesen

Cool beans, just found this:

The Web's Most Humongous Collection of Writing Quotes

Lots of good stuff there. Happy perusing!

This one has been stuck on my computer cases through the rise and fall of the last five...

Writing is easy: All you do is sit staring at a blank sheet of paper until the drops of blood form on your forehead. - Gene Fowler

(And wonderful site, PL!)

Well, I have one here below, and one in my profile, and the the following three are ALSO from Natalie Goldberg:

There is no excuse. If you want to write, write. This is your life.

The only failure in writing is when you stop doing it.

I feel very rich when I have time to write and very poor when I get a regular paycheck and no time time to work at my real work.

Yes, she's my guru. All of the above have actually helped me immensley, and helped me stay on course and true to my dreams and desires.

eschew surplusage
- Mark Twain

Actually anything said by Mark Twain.

Oh, and the quote I have in my sig.

10000

This was supposed to be a cheesy quote given by the narrator of Wonder Boys by Michael Chabon. I have it pinned to the wall above my monitor:

"At the end of every short story the reader should feel as if a cloud has been lifted from the face of the moon"

This isn't specific to writing, in fact, it came from a painter, but I apply it both to my writing and to my knitting designs...

Billie Shelburn: Be independent of the good opinion of others and you won’t believe how that will free your creative self.

And then there's Kierkegaard (translator unknown): Only when I write do I feel well. Then I forget all of Life’s vexations, all its sufferings, then I am wrapped in thought and am happy.

ooh, Maggs! I love the Kierkegaard quote. Perhaps I should put that on my wall with the Chabon quote! Thanks.

'write like your face is on fire' - ktc

I'm flattered. (-;

But Eeyore was saying to himself:
"This writing business. Pencils and what-not. Over-rated, if you ask me. Silly stuff. Nothing in it".

My favorite is:

"Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing."-Benjamin Franklin

Unfortunately, I don't do enough of either!

Some others I like are:

Put down everything that comes into your head and then you're a writer. But an author is one who can judge his own stuff's worth, without pity, and destroy most of it.
Colette

A writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.
Thomas Mann

Only amateurs say that they write for their own amusement. Writing is not an amusing occupation. It is a combination of ditch-digging, mountain-climbing, treadmill and childbirth. Writing may be interesting, absorbing, exhilarating, racking, relieving. But amusing? Never!
Edna Ferber

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.
Robert Benchley

http://www.randomterrain.com/favorite-quotes-writing.html

I have a couple of writing quotes, but my favorite writings are from books.

· ”Brevity is the soul of wit.” ~ William Shakespeare
· “It is always a writer’s duty to make the world better.” ~ Samuel Johnson
· “A writer betrayed by his own words.” ~ David Baldacci
· “Every volume has a soul. The soul of the person who wrote it and of those who read it and lived and dreamed with it. Every time a book changes hands, every time someone runs his eyes down its pages, its spirit grows and strengthens.” ~ Carlos Ruiz Zafon
· “Step by step the narrative split into a thousand stories, as if it had entered a gallery of mirrors, its identity fragmented into endless reflections.” ~ Carlos Ruiz Zafon
· “We were always two fugitives riding on the spine of a book, eager to escape into worlds of fiction and secondhand dreams.” ~ Carlos Ruiz Zafon
· “Books are mirrors: you only see in them what you already have inside you.” ~ Carlos Ruiz Zafon
· “The moment you stop to think about whether you love someone, you’ve already stopped loving that person forever.” ~ Carlos Ruiz Zafon
· “Fine lines bracket her mouth, parentheses around a lifetime of words I was not around to hear.” ~ Jodi Picoult
· “Before I understood that the smile of a child is a tattoo: indelible art.” ~ Jodi Picoult
· “In this way, in increments both measurable and not, our childhood is stolen from us - not always in one momentous event but often in a series of small robberies, which add up to the same loss.” ~ John Irving
· “He used to say that life was all about a boy finding the perfect girl; he was lucky enough to have been handed his in a labor and delivery room.” ~ Jodi Picoult

... can't think of any quotes. Neat ones above. Maybe you know of some more

"When the going gets weird . . the weird turn pro"

Hunter S. Thompson

There are three rules for writing. Unfortunately, no one can agree what they are. - W. Somerset Maugham

A problem cannot be solved at the same level of consciousness that created it. - Albert Einstein

Beware the person with nothing to lose. - Italian proverb

and the quote in my sig. That's my favorite ever!

"Sometimes it's like jumping out of an airplane and hoping you can knit a parachute before you crash." -Neil Gaiman

"You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you." -- Ray Bradbury