How many times have you come across a quote and thought I should write that down? If you are anything like me, the answer is: a lot. Finding meaning in someone else’s words is a joy, and as a writer, I find comfort in the wisdom — and struggles (let’s be honest) — of others. It’s nice to know that not everyone gets it (or a seven-figure deal) the first time out the gate.
Quotes to Write By
“I try to remind myself how much I love to stitch words together to make a story that kids might enjoy reading.”
says Kristiana Gregory, author of the young adult novel Stalked.
The Robert Frost quote taped to her printer reads, “All the fun is in how you say a thing.”
Alexandra Foster, a former New York City-based freelance writer, turns to Ralph Waldo Emerson when she’s struggling:
“Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.”
More Inspiration
I have quotes all over my apartment.
Above my desk I have Ernest Hemingway’s “We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master.” And on my fridge there’s a small piece of paper with Andy Rooney’s words scribbled: “A writer’s job is to tell the truth.”
VH1 writer and blogger Kate Spencer says Andy Warhol’s honesty speaks to her—especially when he said: “Don’t think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it’s good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art.”
Each of us will take to certain phrases more than others, but in case you need a little inspiration these days, here are some quotes to consider:
“Every writer I know has trouble writing.”
Joseph Heller
“The road to hell is paved with adverbs.”
Stephen King
“You can make anything by writing.”
C.S. Lewis
“You can’t edit a blank page.”
Nora Roberts
Jessica S
- Archived Author -
Jessica S writes for the Lulu Blog
“If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.”Stephen King
Thanks for sharing such a nice collection of qutoes.
“The poet’s job is to put into words those feelings we all have that are so deep, so important, and yet so difficult to name, to tell the truth in such a beautiful way that people cannot live without it.” – Jane Kenyon.
“When you lose your fear of death you’ll begin to live. When you lose your fear of life you’ll begin to thrive”.
dont judge a book by its cover ,nd two wrongs dont make a right,
sometimes wen someone is missing the whole world seems depopulated,also if it doesnt belong to you leave it alone,nd put your brain into gear before you open your mouth.
“Keep on Smiling! Live One Day At A Time.”
“The job of an editor is to separate the wheat from the chaff and publish the chaff.” – H.L. Mencken
Writing ain’t easy. To write a book takes research and a good idea and the gumption to work at it till it is done . Then you can do the repair work.-
Ken K. Chartrand
An inspired mind, dwelling in wonderous, creative thought and images, will not be wasted, when put to canvas, pen and ink. Rejoice and be fruitful, cease the moment!
Cry for whom and when worthwhile ….. Hello! Life is laugh, mourn, sing, and above all have fun with the problems, but few are as good mathematics, intractable problems Eye! – Difficult, not impossible.
Llora por quien y cuando valga la pena….. Hello! La vida es reír, llorar, cantar, y sobre todo divertirse con los problemas, bueno aunque unos son como las matemáticas, problemas difíciles de resolver ¡Ojo! – Difíciles, no Imposibles.
Welcome the thought, write it down on paper, revise, and keep revising. There is always mistakes and changes needed to be made. A writer’s job is never done.
“Every character that plays a part in the Resolution should be introduced in the Set-Up, and make sure there’s some real Character Development otherwise there isn’t a real plot. If you bother to study Creative Writing at all, you’re better than 99% of the monkeys who normally resort to self-publishing.”
Talk low, talk slow and don’t say too much.
If we feel bitterness towards past relationships then we have allowed them to win.
-Robin Savage
People generally see what they look for and hear what they listen for.—-Harper Lee, To Kill A Mockingbird
I can give you peace; my peace I give you… but I cannot be your savior or your god – I cannot be the light along your path – I can only give you the lamp and point the way.
– M Teresa Clayton
We possess the knowledge of the Universe from conception.
Once born, we are taught to forget.
– M Teresa Clayton
“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, next they fight you, then you win.” — Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
“Manners are more important than laws.” — Francis Bacon
“The animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours, they move finished and complete, gifted with extension of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren; they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendor and travail of the earth.” — Henry Beston
Do you don’t let no one tell you it cn’t be done. If you don’t try you will never know. Janet Bond
Life is to short to be upset with someone, You never know what might happen,so be happy and tell them you love them everyday dont let something come between you try to work it out because life short you never know what going to happen. Love each other
Wake up from your slumber before you put your future asunder. ~Kelvin Oba
Forget the rules and write from your instincts
Never give up on hope. Never stop loving. And never be afraid to give all of your heart.
Just be careful of giving too much of your heart too soon.
– Charles R. Wenzler Jr
Don’t start by looking for your enemies outside yourself, check out on your attitude first, it could be your biggest enemy, setting you against the world – Okelo P Patuda
I write -I draw, I dream and I write like crazy and crazy writes like me.© samarablank 2012
I love inspirational quotes from writers and try to contribute my own, the latest one being:
When I’m writing, really writing, everything but breathing is an ignorable distraction.
Having a writer for a friend can be the best motivator to get you started. So – Hello.
“You can only keep what you have by giving it away.”
If you want to write a book, you can do it by writing a book.
That’s the only way.
One of my own quotes is. Love never age’s only people age
You must laugh at life, because life is most definitely going to laugh at you.
If you write it on the internet, it automatically becomes true.
“If we don’t fight, who’s going to win?”
“Never blow someone elses candle out to make your own shine brighter” – (Charles Beard)
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.
– Barbara Kingsolver
This is great advice and takes a huge burden off when you go to write something.
Stop making excuses. JFDI.
–Me
for me
‘Nobody’s perfect but I think I do nothing wrong when I trying to be,’
Forget the rules and write from the heart.Follow your instincts.
My favourite quotes are Anais Nin’s “If you do not breathe through writing, if you do not cry out in writing, or sing in writing, then don’t write”, and a pithy line from Somerset Maugham; “There are three rules to writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.”
They remind me that good writing is felt inside, and that no author ever had a monopoly on the right way to do things.
The very wise Mark Twain wrote, “When we realise that we are all mad the mysteries disappear and life stands explained”. That quote guides me through life and explains everything about the people we meet (and have to endure)throughout our lives.
Beauty is incomplete withoyt appreciation.Impossioble means I Am possiblle.That is friend that show fair end.
Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints in the sands of time…
Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labour and to wait.
Henry Longfellow
One must have chaos in one to give birth to a dancing star.
Frederick Nietzsche
“Death only hurts the living” TDK
“Sometimes life is hard. Things go wrong. In life and in love and in business and in friendship and in all the other ways life can go wrong. And when things get tough, this is what you should do:
Make good art.
-Neil Gaiman
“Life is about doing; not about saying your going to do it.” Unknown
Every accomplishment in society started with a dream, and those dreams became reality through those that believed in them.
Sometimes there has to be an ending so that we can go forward to a new beginning.
Not everybody who never gives up succeeds, but everybody who succeeded never did give up.
Live the dream, wear the dream and learn to fly
Look, then, into thine heart, and write!
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. (1807–1882)
Voices of the Night. Prelude.
The old saying gives me great hope in writing my books. (Everyday is a new beginning,) and when my mind is blank I smile to myself because I know what is around the corner, a brand new day, what more can I ask for.
“A children’s story that can only be enjoyed by children is not a good children’s story in the slightest.”
— C.S. Lewis
The writing which engages a person to the extent, that not to have break till complete it.
Such writing can never be seeked, but it needs understanding, research and hardwork, that the words, stories and information shall overflow from the brain of writter. Maulana Wahiddudin Khan.
To “B” or not to “b”.
Only a writer will hold conversations between people that don’t exist. We don’t talk to ouselves – we talk to those we create!
“I will stop writing when the voices in my die”
Even if you have failed with your own work, don’t worry; I have too.
A bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song.
— Maya Angelou
“Creative express is the result of your mind going off the deep end”
“We live to make the impossible possible. That is our Focus!”
-Lightning, Final Fantasy XIII
“Doubt is the onion dip fart that keeps you away from what you want.”
-Eric Paul Johnson
Get all the love you want when you give away all the love you need.
I’ve collected lots of these over the years. This one I use as a sig line in emails:
Write something to suit yourself and many people will like it; write something to suit everybody and scarcely anyone will care for it. — Jesse Stuart
O Ola muita paz
” O mais interessante ao escrever, é que depois de fazê-lo , não nos lembramos de o ter feito…”Cravo
“Of course truth is stranger than fiction. After all, fiction must be believable.” – Mark Twain
And words of personal motivation for me: “Get famous, even if it takes every white blood cell you ever had.”
If you’re not having fun at work it’s just work!
Write Bad and don’t look back. Save the editing for when you have finished.
“It is only impossible until YOU do it!”
My own 2 fave personal written quotes which I put in my book “Rose Meditations” & “Tossing Rose Petals to the Winds.”:
“Life’s a Motherf7cKa when you’re standing in your OWN way!”
‘Even stumbling baby steps FORWARD, are QUANTUM LEAPS into brand new imaginative dimensions, unchartered territory of joy, and unexplored wonder wilderness.’
– quotes by Author, Sears L Barnett Jr.
“To write a book, start from the heart and work your way out, the head will follow eventually’
we learn to be brave by being brave, you learn to persist by persisting,you learn to overcome by overcoming. the character you form and develop is directly proportional to the height or intensity of the quality demanded by the difficult situation, multiplied by the length of time that you demonstrate these quality in the face of adversity.
Don’t judge a book by it’s cover
It’s thought provoking, it stimulates your brain and increases you word power.
Fiction novels are all of the above plus they are entertaining. Choose your genre, choose fiction.
Words flow through my mental like the constants air and crimson which flow through my spirit and veins. They are just as essential to my being and purpose, such as the consistent pulse of life. For me, there is no life without my creativity. ~GD
The first draft of anything is shit.
Ernest Hemingway
One just has to love Nora Roberts and her cold hard facts.