Face the Page - Writing Quotes

Quotes on the Writing Life

Writing may need solitude to be accomplished, but it need not be a solitary pursuit. Be inspired by others. Write these bits of wisdom on post-it notes and stick them to your computer monitor. Print them out and tack them to the wall over your desk. Always remind yourself You Are Not Alone.

You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.
—Jack London

I think the first duty of all art, including fiction of any kind, is to entertain. That is to say, to hold interest. No matter how worthy the message of something , if it's dull, you're just not communicating.
—Poul Anderson

No one can arrive from being talented alone. God gives talent, work transforms talent into genius.
—Anna Pavlova

When I examine myself and my methods of thought I come to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing knowledge.
—Albert Einstein

I saw the angel in the marble and carved to set him free.
—Michelangelo

Don’t look at your feet to see if you’re doing it right. Just dance!
—Anne Lamott

Inspiration is the act of drawing a chair up to the writing desk.
—anonymous

Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.
—Rumi

Self confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings.
—Samuel Johnson

To write is human, to edit is divine.
—Stephen King

Nora Roberts says ‘you can fix anything but a blank page’ and that’s absolutely true. If you spend a day writing crap, you can fix it. If you spend a day not writing, you’ve got nothing.
—Eve Ackerman

Don't let a single day go by without writing. Even if it's garbage, if garbage is all you can write, write it. Garbage eventually becomes compost with a little treatment.
—unknown

The habit of discipline to finish each story is the difference between a hobby and a profession.
—unknown

Either marry your work (take it seriously and do it every day) or date it (write only when you feel like it), but know which you are doing and the repercussions of both.
—unknown

Write without hope and without despair.
—unknown

I love being a writer. What I can't stand is the paperwork.
—Peter De Vries

My mother drew a distinction between achievement and success. She said that achievement is the knowledge that you have studied and worked hard and done the best that is in you. Success is being praised by others, and that's nice, too, but not as important or satisfying. Always aim for achievement and forget about success.
—Helen Hayes

There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is: nor how valuable it is; nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep open and aware directly of the urges that motivate YOU. Keep the channel open. No artist is pleased. There is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer, divine dissatisfaction; a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.
—Martha Graham to Agnes DeMille

Books...are like lobster shells, we surround ourselves with 'em, then we grow out of 'em and leave 'em behind, as evidence of our earlier stages of development.
—Dorothy L. Sayers (1893 - 1957), The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club, 1928

If you really want to hurt your parents and you don't have nerve enough to be homosexual, the least you can do is go into the arts.
—Kurt Vonnegut

The skill of writing is to create a context in which other people can think.
—Edwin Schlossberg

And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.
—Anais Nin (1903 - 1977)

I am extraordinarily patient, provided I get my own way in the end.
—Margaret Thatcher (1925 - ), in Observer April 4, 1989

Writing gives you the illusion of control, and then you realize it's just an illusion, that people are going to bring their own stuff into it.
—David Sedaris, interview in Louisville Courier-Journal, June 5, 2005

Don't join the book burners. Don't think you're going to conceal faults by concealing evidence that they ever existed. Don't be afraid to go in your library and read every book...
—Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890 - 1969)

The only time I know that something is true is the moment I discover it in the act of writing.
—Jean Malaquais

The man who writes about himself and his own time is the only man who writes about all people and all time.
—George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)

He who fears he shall suffer, already suffers what he fears.
—Michel de Montaigne

To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong.
—Joseph Chilton Pearce

You have to have confidence in your ability, and then be tough enough to follow through.
—Rosalynn Carter (1927 - )

Most of the shadows of this life are caused by standing in one's own sunshine.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson

There is no reason why good cannot triumph as often as evil. The triumph of anything is a matter of organization. If there are such things as angels, I hope that they are organized along the lines of the Mafia.
—Kurt Vonnegut

Don't explain why it works; explain how you use it.
—Steven Brust

May stillness be upon your thoughts
And silence upon your tongue
For I tell you a tale as it was told at the beginning
The one story worth the telling.
—(Celtic traditional)

Kingdoms need their castles, just as dragons mighty scales.
Without a quest or vision there's no magic in the tales.
I savor deeds of wonder told in prose or told in rhyme.
May I never grow to old to treasure 'once upon a time'. —unknown

If you know who to attribute any of the 'unknown' quotes, please email so we can give proper credit.