Writing Quotes

I was told, and indeed I saw several examples, that neither time nor place was much minded, and that I might hazard being equally careless of chronology and geography; but I piqued myself on having studied Aristotle, and scrupulously attended to the probabilities of time and place.

~ Charlotte Turner Smith

A novel is a writer's rant disguised as entertainment...

~ James Minter

Awake and asleep the novel is with you, dogging your footsteps. Strange formless bits of material float out from the ether about you and attach themselves to the main body of the story as though they had hung suspended in air for years, waiting.

~ Edna Ferber

It’s good to go off and write a novel, but don’t stop doing writing practice.

~ Natalie Goldberg

The if I had time lie is a convenient way to ignore the fact that novels require being written and that writing happens a sentence at a time. Sentences can happen in a moment. Enough stolen moments, enough stolen sentences, and a novel is born - without the luxury of time.

~ Julia Cameron

Commercial fiction writing – where my bread is buttered – is fairly straightforward. The writing is simply efficiency and story. The more you have of one the less you need of the other.

~ Joe Ducie

Novelists don't normally write about what's going on, they write about what's not going on.

~ Martin Amis

The tears were there, waiting to make their escape. But she wouldn’t let them. Not this time. She couldn’t. Because if there was one thing she had to do now, it was be strong and brave. She just had to be strong and brave for one week. That was no time at all. And when the week was over and Milo had found his true mate, she would disappear.

~ Elaine White

Every artist was first an amateur.

~ Hafiz

Oh, readers. If only you knew what we've gone through for you.

~ Harry Olsen

I thought it was a novel.”“It is.”“What’s it about??”“You’ll have to buy it to find out, but it’s got everything: love, death and an amusing dog.”“This one’s got a recipe for apple crumble,” I said.“Don’t you love that about the novel? The capaciousness?” he said.

~ Marcel Theroux

A novelist's job is almost to be a stupid as possible, except in the cunning moment when you need to structure something, when you need to be very intelligent indeed. The rest of the time, you need almost an empty mind, where you can let any image in, follow it along, and allow an emotional charge, almost the way actors and singers can work. The more instinct you have as a novelist, and the less intelligence, the better.

~ Colm Tóibín

Writing a novel is easy… writing checks is hard.

~ Michael J. Kannengieser

Don’t be offended if you encounter some good-natured ribbing, the idea ofwriting a novel in a month deserves to be laughed at.

~ Chris Baty

Writing is the only way to run away from home, without ever leaving.

~ Shannon L. Alder

Writing a novel is like trying to solve a jigsaw puzzle whose pieces aren't even fixed in shape. Yet, somehow, they all come together in the end to form the complete picture.

~ Jyoti Arora

I am a dash man and not a miler, and it is probable that I will never write a novel. So far the novels of this war have had too much of the strength, maturity and craftsmanship critics are looking for, and too little of the glorious imperfections which teeter and fall off the best minds. The men who have been in this war deserve some sort of trembling melody rendered without embarrassment or regret. I’ll watch for that book.

~ J.d. Salinger

Writing a novel is like traveling the universe on foot.

~ Dennis R. Miller

Most times, my mind is just an ongoing, present-tense, first-person monologue. It's like I'm writing a novel, constantly, but only in my brain.

~ Andrew Shaffer

Most times, my mind is just an ongoing, present-tense, first-person monologue. It's like I'm writing a novel.

~ Andrew Shaffer

[T]he success of every novel -- if it's a novel of action -- depends on the high spots. The thing to do is to say to yourself, What are my big scenes? and then get every drop of juice out of

~ P.g. Wodehouse

One cannot underestimate boredom as an incentive to write.

~ Philip Zaleski

I wouldn’t say “art” as much as “virtue,” in the ancient Greek sense of “andreia” – manly action – or “arete,” excellence. In my experience, Resistance kicks in any time we try to move ourselves from a lower plane to a higher. In other words, when we try to align with the better parts of our nature. This move can be creative (art) or physical (athletics) or it can be ethical, moral or spiritual. Have you ever tried to meditate? I have and it kicks my butt every time. Spiritual stuff is hard! But so is making “cold calls” if you’re opening a new business. Somehow the principle is the same. We’re trying to overcome our natural laziness, selfishness, sloppiness, etc. So I wouldn’t say “art,” I’d say “virtue.

~ Steven Pressfield

I personally find that having a couple of projects going at once can be an aid to focus, refreshing my brain as I go back and forth between them – a book review and a novel at the same time, for example. But I’ve seen that writers who are starting out sometimes throw their energy in so many different directions that they can never finish any of the projects, much less all of them.To me a good test is this: what do you like to read? What kind of book moves and affects you the most? Is it the memoir, the novel, the long poem-collection? Personally, I find myself most immersed in the novel, and that’s why I write them – they have the most magic for me. The joy of self-expression is exhilarating, but ultimately choosing one venue for it can make your work much better – and same for your chances of actually finishing something.

~ Charles Finch

To master magical realism, one must make the real seem unreal but, more importantly, make the unreal seem real.

~ Kevin Ansbro

But you can't fault me on my footnotes. I've worked hard on them and they look pretty impressive. And almost all the sources I quote actually exist. I must confess, however, that the idea of putting footnotes in chapter 5, the autobiographical chapter, started out simply as a joke. Who but a biblical scholar would think of footnoting an autobiography? But the joke quickly got out of hand and become a significant part of that chapter. I plan someday to write a scholarly article consisting of a single sentence and a twenty-page footnote.

~ Jeffrey L. Staley

Writing places a person in the community of those imaginative spirits whom preceded their birth. Writing also connects a person with the intrepid spirits whom share the present as well as with those souls whom are not yet born.

~ Kilroy J. Oldster

Sometimes when I prepare to write, I feel the same sensation wash over me as if my toes were curling over the brink of a high cliff, my gaze peering downward into a dark pond, and I anxiously wonder, will the water prove deep enough? Will my words be satisfactory?

~ Richelle E. Goodrich

He could’ve penned a rendition of Moby Dick in Pig Latin and he wouldn’t have been the wiser.

~ Kelly Moran

A story only wants to be told. Don't stand in its way.

~ Aleks Canard

Yes I am aware of the rules. Yes I can totally see how I err the Queen.Yes it is this very fact of slaying her language.That gives my soul its melodies.

~ Malebo Sephodi

The biggest thing for aspiring writers I would say is that writing is hard work. You can’t sustain the fantasy that it should somehow be otherwise for you because you are more special or more committed than other aspiring writers. You aren’t sitting down to be entertained by the gods or to entertain yourself. At times it can be a thrill and it feels more like play, but we are easily deceived by whatever pleasures or rewards writing can offer. Exhilarating work is still work. Is it work, or is it play? And the answer is “yes.” Does it sometimes feel like it comes easily or naturally? Yes. But did it really come easily? No. Writing doesn’t offer the rhythmic endorphin hit you get scrolling down the screen clicking on memes. Are you up for the work it is going to take to become successful as a writer? It is going to be harder than you think. You are submitting to forces and to a process that you can’t fully control. There is maybe a tiny bit more control if you self-publish, and there is no shame in doing that, but even that is going to introduce hard work. Probably harder than you think. If my next novel can’t find a home, I’m not above self-publishing it in some capacity and then moving on to the next project.

~ Brian K. Friesen

I love writing, but I would be able to love it more if that love wasn’t motivated by fear of homelessness.

~ Jenny Trout

Where did the stereotypical image of the reclusive author in a bathrobe and slippers, indulging in vices and spending hours before a typewriter, even come from? I don't know about you, but most writers don't have the luxury of doing any of this. Otherwise we'd have no life experience and nothing to write about, anyway.

~ Rebecca Mcnutt

When you begin a new story, your job is to envision, to try to glimpse stuff that doesn't as yet exist. That's what writing is, going out to meet the ghosts of the future. Not out of the past, not the ones that are dead and buried. Ghosts of the future, those who don't exist yet.

~ Cédric Klapisch

I'm not just building a foundation or a house with the bricks people throw at me. I'm building entire worlds. it's called writing.

~ Tracy Millosovich

It’s like people immediately imagine me sitting in some gothic, sweeping castle in Edinburgh, a piece of fine bone china full of English tea next to my neat writing station. They think that my car, my purse, my everything was financed by my lucrative but somehow not too time consuming writing career. I’ve even had one guy ask me if my hand cramps at signings. While I wanted to give a snarky, “Yes, just like Tom Brady’s does,” I can’t pull off snarky. My sarcasm immediately goes into b**ch territory

~ Mandy Nachampassack-Maloney

One of my favourite things about being an author is waking up knowing that there are worlds just waiting to be discovered and created.

~ C.s. Woolley

And I write novels! chimed in the other cop. Though I haven't had any of them published yet, so I better warn you, I'm in a meeeean mood!

~ Douglas Adams

If a story is only what it seems to be about, then somehow the author has failed.

~ Edward Gorey