When a writer is at a loss for words, things can be rough. Use these brilliantly-worded, inspirational and writing-oriented quotes to help inspire your own writing and as a way to relate to other writers, knowing you are not alone in the solitary act of writing.
Quotes that Writers Can Relate To
Writers often feel misunderstood, which is often part of the reason they write. These quotes can be shared between writers or enjoyed personally.
"You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you." ~Ray Bradbury
"Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia." ~E.L. Doctorow
"The older we get, the more... you realize there's a whole range of things that you will never do, of things and people you will never be. As life becomes more and more limiting, there is something wonderful about being able to get inside the skin of people unlike yourself." ~Lee Smith
"The only cure for writer's block is insomnia." ~Merit Antares
Quotes to Remember When Writing
The advice of other writers is invaluable to both beginners and professionals. Try following these writers' inspiring quotes when writing and post one or two beside your desk as you write.
"Unlike even those closest to us in real life—our spouses, our lovers, our kin, whom we can never know completely—fictional people retain only as much privacy and secrecy as those who create them decide to let them keep." ~Doug Baker
"When writers are self-conscious about themselves as writers they often keep a great distance from their characters, sounding as if they were writing encyclopedia entries instead of stories. Their hesitancy about physical and psychological intimacy can be a barrier to vital fiction. Conversely, a narration that makes readers hear the characters' heavy breathing and smell their emotional anguish diminishes distance. Readers feel so close to the characters that, for those magical moments, they become those characters." ~Jerome Stern
"The two most engaging powers of an author are to make new things familiar and familiar things new." ~Samuel Johnson
Quotes to Remember After Writing
After completing a piece, whether it be a poem or a novel, keep these completion and revision quotes in mind.
"Stories... do not so much resist interpretation as survive its scrutiny." ~C. Michael Curtis
"... You generally start out with some overall idea that you can see fairly clearly, as if you were standing on a dock and looking at a ship on the ocean. At first you can see the entire ship, but then as you begin work you're in the boiler room and you can't see the ship anymore... What you really want in an editor is someone who's still on the dock, who can say, Hi, I'm looking at your ship, and it's missing a bow, the front mast is crooked, and it looks to me as if your propellers are going to have to be fixed." ~Michael Chrichton
"Write your first draft with your heart. Re-write with your head." ~From the movie Finding Forrester
"The best style is the style you don't notice." ~Somerset Maugham
Writers share special qualities, both gifts and obstacles, but these quotes can help writers at every stage in the writing process through relating to great and inspiring writers and their quotes.
Related Reading:
- Inspiring Writing Quotes to Keep on the Desk
- Writing Quotes to Inspire Great Fiction
- Inspiring Life Quotes
Megan B. Wyatt - Megan B. Wyatt has a BA in English, edits fiction manuscripts and currently works as an entertainment reporter in Lafayette, Louisiana.
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