Writers and Writing Quotes

147 quotations about Writers and Writing

Nowadays three witty turns of phrase and a lie make a writer.

Georg C. Lichtenberg · Writers and Writing

Writing books is the closest men ever come to childbearing.

Norman Mailer · Writers and Writing

I never think when I write. Nobody can do two things at the same time and do them well.

Don Marquis · Writers and Writing

Practically everybody in New York has half a mind to write a book, and does.

Groucho Marx · Writers and Writing

It's very hard to be a gentleman and a writer.

W. Somerset Maugham · Writers and Writing

The trouble with young writers is that they are all in their sixties.

W. Somerset Maugham · Writers and Writing

The writer is more concerned to know than to judge.

W. Somerset Maugham · Writers and Writing

There are three rules for writing the novel. Unfortunately no one knows what they are.

W. Somerset Maugham · Writers and Writing

Give me a condor's quill! Give me Vesuvius crater for an inkstand!

Herman Melville · Writers and Writing

Writing crystallizes thought and thought produces action.

Paul J. Meyer · Writers and Writing

Writing is the hardest way of earning a living, with the possible exception of wrestling alligators.

Olin Miller · Writers and Writing

Let those who would write heroic poems make their life an heroic poem.

John Milton · Writers and Writing

I always write a good first line, but I have trouble in writing the others.

Moliere · Writers and Writing

All the world knows me in my book, and may book in me.

Michel Eyquem De Montaigne · Writers and Writing

The shelf life of the modern hardback writer is somewhere between the milk and the yogurt.

John Mortimer · Writers and Writing

Writing is like getting married. One should never commit oneself until one is amazed at one's luck.

Iris Murdoch · Writers and Writing

Style and Structure are the essence of a book; great ideas are hogwash.

Vladimir Nabokov · Writers and Writing

I'm the kind of writer that people think other people are reading.

V. S. Naipaul · Writers and Writing

To be a good diarist, one must have a snouty, sneaky mind.

Harold Nicolson · Writers and Writing

Of all that is written, I love only what a person has written with his own blood.

Friedrich Nietzsche · Writers and Writing

A writer is a person who has solutions for which there are no riddles.

Gregory Nunn · Writers and Writing

For a creative writer possession of the truth is less important than emotional sincerity.

George Orwell · Writers and Writing

If I had more time I would write a shorter letter.

Blaise Pascal · Writers and Writing

The last thing we decide in writing a book is what to put first.

Blaise Pascal · Writers and Writing

Writers, you know, are the beggars of Western society.

Octavio Paz · Writers and Writing

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