You were born that way. “It’s none of their business that you have to learn how to write. Let them think you were born that way.” —Ernest Hemingway
Breathe. Write. Breathe. “I write for the same reason I breathe – because if I didn’t, I would die.” —Isaac Asimov
It’s about the content. “Content is king.” —Bill Gates
You have limitless possibilities. “You can make anything by writing.” —C. S. Lewis
Learn to keep secrets. “Le secret d’ennuyer est celui de tout dire. (The secret to being a bore is to tell everything.)” —Voltaire
Go ahead, break the rules like a pro. “Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.” —Pablo Picasso
Make every page a cliffhanger. “Writing simply means no dependent clauses, no dangling things, no flashbacks, and keeping the subject near the predicate. We throw in as many fresh words we can get away with. Simple, short sentences don’t always work. You have to do tricks with pacing, alternate long sentences with short, to keep it vital and alive…. Virtually every page is a cliffhanger–you’ve got to force them to turn it.” —Dr. Seuss
Fill your room’s soul. “A room without books is like a body without a soul.” —Marcus Tullius Cicero
Either way, write. “Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.” —Benjamin Franklin
Show me the glint. “Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.” —Anton Chekhov
Shake off everything. I can shake off everything as I write; my sorrows disappear, my courage is reborn.” —Anne Frank
Kill the monster. “Writing a book is an adventure. To begin with it is a toy and an amusement. Then it becomes a mistress, then it becomes a master, then it becomes a tyrant. The last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster and fling him to the public.” —Winston Churchill
Pick up your pen. “If you want to change the world, pick up your pen and write.” —Martin Luther
Dare to do it. “All serious daring starts from within.” —Eudora Welty
Say what we can’t say. “The role of the writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say.” —Anais Nin
There’s nothing to it. “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at the typewriter and bleed.” —Ernest Hemingway
You must write it. “If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” —Toni Morrison
Let me feel the rain. “Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader – not the fact that it is raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.” —E.L. Doctorow
Delete very offensive adjectives. “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
Write the last sentence first. “The first sentence can’t be written until the final sentence is written.” —Joyce Carol Oates
You have something to say—so say it. “You don’t write because you want to say something… you write because you have something to say.”—F. Scott Fitzgerald
Writing: how to know what you think. “I write because I don’t know what I think until I read what I say.” —Flannery O’Connor
Writing is a gift, so give your words to others. “And what, you ask, does writing teach us? First and foremost, it reminds us that we are alive and that it is a gift and a privilege, not a right.” —Ray Bradbury
Give it all. “One of the things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now. Something more will arise for later, something better.” —Annie Dillard
Just try. Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the things you can think up if only you try!”—Dr. Seuss
Keep it simple, smarty. “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t know your subject.” —Albert Einstein
Put words on the page. “You can fix anything but a blank page.” —Nora Roberts
Don’t let proper English get in the way. “If it sounds like writing, I re-write it. Or, if proper usage gets in the way, it may have to go. I can’t allow what we learned in English composition to disrupt the sound and rhythm of the narrative.”—Elmore Leonard
Combine words for good. “Words – so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them.” —Nathaniel Hawthorne
Get rid of the exclamation marks! “What is it about us lady authors and our fascination for the exclamation mark?” —E.A. Bucchianeri
Write while the words burn. “Write while the heat is in you….The writer who postpones the recording of his thoughts uses an iron which has been cooled to burn a hole with.” —Henry David Thoreau
Give yourself permission to write badly. “One thing that helps is to give myself permission to write badly. I tell myself that I’m going to do my five or 10 pages no matter what, and that I can always tear them up the following morning if I want. I’ll have lost nothing–writing and tearing up five pages would leave me no further behind than if I took the day off.” —Lawrence Block
Think on paper. “Writing is thinking on paper.” —William Zinsser
Being a writer gives you an excuse. “One of the gifts of being a writer is that it gives you an excuse to do things, to go places, to explore.” —Anne Lamott
Don’t be afraid of saying things that need to be said. “I believe in getting into hot water; it keeps you clean.” —G.K. Chesterton
Plan to write, even after your plans to write get thwarted. “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” —Mike Tyson
One word will do. “The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.” —Thomas Jefferson
Don’t write some things. “What I don’t write is as important as what I write.” —Jamaica Kincaid
Writing is a terrible experience. “Writing a novel is a terrible experience, during which the hair often falls out and the teeth decay.”—Flannery O’Connor
Writing is a paradox. “The paradox of writing is that you’re trying to use words to express what words can’t express.” —Jo Linsdell
Write, and you will learn to write. “I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.” —Pablo Picasso
Spend your days writing. “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.” —Annie Dillard
Develop perspective. “An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.” —G.K. Chesterton
Choose happiness or misery—it will show in your writing. “I’ve learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our dispositions and not on our circumstances.” —Martha Washington
Prepare your heart to welcome your experience, then open the door. “The soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience.” —Emily Dickinson
Develop talent and thick skin. “I would advise that anyone who aspires to a writing career that before developing his talent he would be wise to develop a thick hide.” —Harper Lee
Don’t let your writing stay hidden. “Nothing stinks like a pile of unpublished writing.” —Sylvia Plath
Do it. “The most effective way to do it, is to do it.” —Amelia Earhart
Laugh. “If you can’t make it better, you can laugh at it.” —Erma Bombeck
Don’t let others silence you. “If a woman has a particular superiority, for example, a profound mind, it is best kept a profound secret.” (Becoming Jane)
Let your writing sail into the world. “A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are for.” —John A. Shedd
Anchors away: let it go. “The fishermen know the sea is dangerous and the storm terrible, but they have never found these dangers sufficient reason for remaining ashore.” —Vincent van Gogh
Be adventurous. “Don’t refuse to go on an occasional wild goose chase; that’s what wild geese are for.” —Henry S. Haskins
Your writing is a gift from God. “God’s gifts put man’s best dreams to shame.” —Elizabeth Barrett Browning
