30 writing quotes from well-known authors by Kaye Spencer #writingquotes #quotes #PrairieRosePubs

I love witty quotes and clever sayings, so in that regard, here are my favorite quotes about writing.

Mark Twain - Writing is easy. All you have to do is cross out the wrong words.

Ray Bradbury - You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.

Gene Fowler - Writing is easy; all you do is sit staring at a blank sheet of paper until the drops of blood form on your forehead. 

Robert A. Heinlein - Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards.

Rosemary Mahoney - Writing is not a genteel profession; it's quite nasty and tough and kind of dirty.

Richard North Patterson - Writing is rewriting. A writer must learn to deepen characters, trim writing, intensify scenes. To fall in love with a first draft to the point where one cannot change it is to greatly enhance the prospects of never publishing.

Mark Twain - Substitute 'damn' every time you're inclined to write 'very;' your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.

Mark Twain - The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.

Marcus Fabius Quintilianus - Write quickly and you will never write well; write well, and you will soon write quickly.

Frank Yerby - It is my contention that a really great novel is made with a knife and not a pen. A novelist must have the intestinal fortitude to cut out even the most brilliant passage so long as it doesn't advance the story.

Charlotte Bronte - I'm just going to write because I cannot help it.

Clarence Budington Kelland - I get up in the morning, torture a typewriter until it screams, then stop.

via GIPHY

Leo Rosten - Every writer is a narcissist. This does not mean that he is vain; it only means that he is hopelessly self-absorbed.

Robert Benchley - It took me fifteen years to discover that I had no talent for writing, but I couldn't give it up because by that time I was too famous.

Stephen Wright - I'm writing a book. I've got the page numbers done.

Mickey Spillane - The first chapter sells the book; the last chapter sells the next book.

E. L. Doctorow - Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.

Harlan Ellison - Thank your readers and the critics who praise you, and then ignore them. Write for the most intelligent, wittiest, wisest audience in the universe: Write to please yourself.

Eugene Ionesco - A writer never has a vacation. For a writer life consists of either writing or thinking about writing.

Stephen Leigh - You may be able to take a break from writing, but you won't be able to take a break from being a writer...

Niyi Osundare - One hasn't become a writer until one has distilled writing into a habit, and that habit has been forced into an obsession. Writing has to be an obsession. It has to be something as organic, physiological and psychological as speaking or sleeping or eating.

Rainer Maria Rilke - What is needed is, in the end, simply this: solitude, great inner solitude. Going into yourself and meeting no one for hours on end - that is what you must be able to attain.

Ernest Hemingway - The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shock-proof, shit detector. This is the writer's radar and all great writers have had it.

Oscar Wilde - There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.

William Carlos Williams - I think all writing is a disease. You can’t stop it.

George Orwell - Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.

Franz Kafka - A non-writing writer is a writer courting insanity.

W. Somerset Maugham - There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.

Dorothy Parker - If you have any young friends who aspire to become writers, the second greatest favor you can do them is to present them with copies of 'The Elements of Style'. The first greatest, of course, is to shoot them now, while they’re happy.

And the best writing quote of all...

Lev Grossman - Don’t take anyone’s writing advice too seriously.

;-)

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Until next time,

Kaye Spencer
Writing through history one romance upon a time

Images:
Courtesy OpenClipArt.com and Morguefile.com
The Scream: Edvard Munch creator QS:P170,Q41406, Edvard Munch, 1893, The Scream, oil, tempera and pastel on cardboard, 91 x 73 cm, National Gallery of Norway, marked as public domain, more details on Wikimedia Commons