Feeling a lack of inspiration? Here are 28 of our favourite writing quotes to get you fired up. They span the themes of planning a written piece, the act of writing, writing difficulties, editing, and the power of writing.
On Choosing a Theme
"If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it." — Toni Morrison
"You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children." — Madeleine L'Engle
"To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme." — Herman Melville
"Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing." — Benjamin Franklin
"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
"The best time for planning a book is while you’re doing the dishes." — Agatha Christie
On the Act of Writing
"If you can tell stories, create characters, devise incidents, and have sincerity and passion, it doesn’t matter a damn how you write." — Somerset Maugham
"People on the outside think there’s something magical about writing, that you go up in the attic at midnight and cast the bones and come down in the morning with a story, but it isn’t like that. You sit at the back of the typewriter and you work, and that’s all there is to it." — Harlan Ellison
"Writing is like sex. First you do it for love, then you do it for your friends, and then you do it for money" — Virginia Woolf
"Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands afterward." — Robert A. Heinlein
"If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn't brood. I'd type a little faster." — Isaac Asimov
"I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I see, and what it means." — Joan Didion
On the Difficulty of Writing
"A blank piece of paper is God’s way of telling us how hard it to be God." — Sidney Sheldon
"I am irritated by my own writing. I am like a violinist whose ear is true, but whose fingers refuse to reproduce precisely the sound he hears within." — Gustave Flaubert
"Get it down. Take chances. It may be bad, but it’s the only way you can do anything really good." — William Faulkner
"There’s no such thing as writer’s block. That was invented by people in California who couldn’t write." — Terry Pratchett
"I went for years not finishing anything. Because, of course, when you finish something you can be judged." — Erica Jong
On Editing
"Half my life is an act of revision." — John Irving
"It is perfectly okay to write garbage—as long as you edit brilliantly." — C. J. Cherryh
"I can’t write five words but that I change seven." — Dorothy Parker
"You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write." — Saul Bellow
"The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do." — Thomas Jefferson
On the Power of Writing
Words are a lens to focus one’s mind. — Ayn Rand
"A word after a word after a word is power." — Margaret Atwood
"We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect." — Anaïs Nin
"I can shake off everything as I write; my sorrows disappear, my courage is reborn." — Anne Frank
"To survive, you must tell stories." — Umberto Eco
"The purpose of a writer is to keep civilization from destroying itself." — Albert Camus
"You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you." — Ray Bradbury
Still not feeling any inspiration? Maybe we can help. Drop us a line and we'll see what we can do for you.