Great Quotes on Writing

If you know me, you know my love of quotes. I think they are helpful in reminding us of things that we may already know well (but forget), and in helping us to reach new realizations. They are short snipets from the wisdom and insight of people with either experience and expertise in your area of interest, or those who on the journey of discovering that wisdom.


So here's a collection of my personal favorite quotes on writing. I hope you find some of them interesting or helpful, and share some of your favorites.

 QUOTES

Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass
~Chekhov

The reason one writes isn't the fact he wants to say something. He writes because he has something to say.
~F. Scott Fitzgerald

Close the door. Write with no one looking over your shoulder. 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

Writing is only boring to the people who are boring themselves.
~Anonymous

I was working on the proof of one of my poems all the morning, and took out a comma. In the afternoon I put it back again.
~Oscar Wilde

If the doctor told me I had six minutes to live, I'd type a little faster.
~Isaac Asimov

Quantity produces quality. If you only write a few things, you're doomed.
~Ray Bradbury

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.
~E. L. Doctorow

When once the itch of literature comes over a man, nothing can cure it but the scratching of a pen.
~Samuel Lover

God sells us all things at the price of the labor.
~Leonardo da Vinci

Fiction writers, present company included, don't understand very much about what they do - not why it works when it's good, not why it doesn't when it's bad.
~Stephen King

You cannot depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.
~Mark Twain

Imagination is more important than knowledge.
~Albert Einstein

One of the really bad things you can do to your writing is to dress up the vocabulary, looking for long words because you're maybe a little bit ashamed of your short ones.
~Stephen King
 
If you don't have the time to read, you don't have the time or the tools to write.
~Stephen King

First, find out what your hero wants. Then just follow him.
~Ray Bradbury

I never started from ideas but always from character.
~Ivan Turgenev

No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader.
~Robert Frost

Your stuff starts out being just for you… but then it goes out. Once you know what the story is and get it right - as right as you can, anyway - it belongs to anyone who wants to read it. Or criticize it.
~Stephen King

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




Checkov





Bradbury





Twain

This is just a few, there's so many other wonderful quotes out there about our art and craft. Did I miss one of your favorites? Please share.