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Quotes about writing

377 quotes from 206 people

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I keep saying, Shakspeare, Shakspeare, you are as obscure as life is.
Matthew Arnold1822–1888Letter to Arthur Hugh Clough (c. 6 December 1847); note the alternate spelling of Shakespeare
Science fiction writers foresee the inevitable, and although problems and catastrophes may be inevitable, solutions are not.
Isaac Asimov1920–1992“How Easy to See the Future”, Natural History magazine (April 1975)
Writers started doing dystopias after we saw the effects of trying to build utopias that required, unfortunately, the elimination of a lot of people before you could get to the perfect point, which never arrived.
Margaret Atwoodborn 1939The Progressive interview (2010)
It’s a feature of our age that if you write a work of fiction, everyone assumes that the people and events in it are disguised biography — but if you write your biography, it’s equally assumed you’re lying your head off.
Margaret Atwoodborn 1939On Writing Poetry (1995)
- Truth & Lies
All stories are about wolves. All worth repeating, that is. Anything else is sentimental drivel.
Margaret Atwoodborn 1939The Blind Assassin (2000)
Every autobiography is concerned with two characters, a Don Quixote, the Ego, and a Sancho Panza, the Self.
W. H. Auden1907–1973The Dyer’s Hand, and Other Essays (1962), “Hic et Ille”
Money is the necessity that frees us from necessity. Of all novelists in any country, Trollope best understands the role of money. Compared with him even Balzac is a romantic.
W. H. Auden1907–1973Forewords and Afterwords (1973)
- Money
Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery.
Jane Austen1775–1817Mansfield Park (1814), Chapter XLVIIIIn context
Only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best-chosen language.
Jane Austen1775–1817Northanger Abbey (1817), Chapter 5In context
- Reading
No one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy would have supposed her born to be an heroine.
Jane Austen1775–1817Northanger Abbey (1817), Chapter 1In context
Reading makes a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.
Francis Bacon1561–1626Meditationes sacræ (1597), Of Studies
- Reading
- Talking
Any writer, I suppose, feels that the world into which he was born is nothing less than a conspiracy against the cultivation of his talent.
James Baldwin1924–1987“Autobiographical Notes” (1952)
I am a galley slave to pen and ink.
Honoré de Balzac1799–1850Letter to Zulma Carraud (2 July 1832), translated by C. Lamb Kenney
Don’t you wish you had a job like mine? All you have to do is think up a certain number of words! Plus, you can repeat words! And they don’t even have to be true!
Dave Barryborn 1947
- Dave Barry
I figured out why I’m not getting seriously rich. I write newspaper columns. Nobody ever makes newspaper columns into Major Motion Pictures starring Tom Cruise. The best you can hope for, with a newspaper column, is that people will like it enough to attach it to their refrigerators with magnets shaped like fruit.
Dave Barryborn 1947
- Dave Barry
- Journalism