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Quotes about writing

377 quotes from 206 people

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The proper definition of a man is an animal that writes letters.
Lewis Carroll1832–1898The Selected Letters of Lewis Carroll, ed. Roger Lancelyn Green (1989), p. 10
- Comedy
‘Take care of the sense, and the sounds will take care of themselves.’
Lewis Carroll1832–1898Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865), Chapter IXIn context
- Advice
The aim of science is to discover and illuminate truth. And that, I take it, is the aim of literature, whether biography or history or fiction. It seems to me, then, that there can be no separate literature of science.
Rachel Carson1907–1964Acceptance speech of the National Book Award for Nonfiction (1952) for The Sea Around Us
- Science
If there is poetry in my book about the sea, it is not because I deliberately put it there, but because no one could write truthfully about the sea and leave out the poetry.
Rachel Carson1907–1964Acceptance speech of the National Book Award for Nonfiction (1952)
- Poetry
Writing is a lonely occupation at best.
Rachel Carson1907–1964Acceptance speech of the Achievement Award of the American Association of University Women, Washington, D.C., June 22, (1956)
There are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before.
Willa Cather1873–1947O Pioneers! (1913), Part II, Ch. 4
- History
The pen is the tongue of the soul; as are the thoughts engendered there, so will be the things written.
Miguel de Cervantes1547–1616Don Quixote, Part II (1615), Ch. 16 (tr. Henry Edward Watts, 1895)
The solution, once revealed, must seem to have been inevitable. At least half of all the mystery novels published violate this law.
Raymond Chandler1888–1959“Casual Notes on the Mystery Novel” (essay, 1949), first published in Raymond Chandler Speaking (1962)
It’s not a matter of old or new forms; a person writes without thinking about any forms, he writes because it flows freely from his soul.
Anton Chekhov1860–1904The Seagull (1896), Act IV
Violent obsessions sometimes lay hold of a man: he may, for instance, think day and night of nothing but the moon. I have such a moon. Day and night I am held in the grip of one besetting thought, to write, write, write!
Anton Chekhov1860–1904The Seagull (1896), Act II, spoken by TrigorinIn context
To my dying day I shall hear people say: “Clever and pretty; clever and pretty,” and nothing more; and when I am gone, those that knew me will say as they pass my grave: “Here lies Trigorin, a clever writer, but he was not as good as Turgenieff.”
Anton Chekhov1860–1904The Seagull (1896), Act II, spoken by TrigorinIn context
- Fame
The conviction is gradually forcing itself upon me that good literature is not a question of forms new or old, but of ideas that must pour freely from the author’s heart, without his bothering his head about any forms whatsoever.
Anton Chekhov1860–1904The Seagull (1896), Act IV, spoken by TreplieffIn context
A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.
G. K. Chesterton1874–1936Heretics (1905)
Journalism largely consists of saying ‘Lord Jones is Dead’ to people who never knew that Lord Jones was alive.
G. K. Chesterton1874–1936
- Journalism
The only right way of telling a story is to begin at the beginning⁠—at the beginning of the world. Therefore all books have to be begun in the wrong way for the sake of brevity.
G. K. Chesterton1874–1936