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Quotes about writing

377 quotes from 206 people

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I’m not a very good writer, but I’m an excellent rewriter.
James A. Michener1907–1997
I think the crucial thing in the writing career is to find what you want to do and how you fit in. What somebody else does is of no concern whatever except as an interesting variation.
James A. Michener1907–1997
I was brought up in the great tradition of the late nineteenth century: that a writer never complains, never explains and never disdains.
James A. Michener1907–1997
Every reader finds himself. The writer’s work is merely a kind of optical instrument that makes it possible for the reader to discern what, without this book, he would perhaps never have seen in himself.
Marcel Proust1871–1922
- Reading
Reading makes a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.
Francis Bacon1561–1626Meditationes sacræ (1597), Of Studies
- Reading
- Talking
There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written.
Oscar Wilde1854–1900The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891)In context
I perceived that to express those impressions, to write that essential book, which is the only true one, a great writer does not, in the current meaning of the word, invent it, but, since it exists already in each one of us, interprets it. The duty and the task of a writer are those of an interpreter.
Marcel Proust1871–1922
Literature always anticipates life. It does not copy it, but moulds it to its purpose.
Oscar Wilde1854–1900
Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.
Thomas Jefferson1743–1826Letter to Dr. James Currie (28 January 1786) Lipscomb & Bergh 18:ii
- Journalism
In America the President reigns for four years, and Journalism governs for ever and ever.
Oscar Wilde1854–1900The Soul of Man Under Socialism (1891)
- Journalism
The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter⁠—‘tis the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning.
Mark Twain1835–1910Letter to George Bainton, 15 October 1888, solicited for and printed in George Bainton, The Art of Authorship: Literary Reminiscences, Methods of Work, and Advice to Young Beginners (1890), pp. 87–88.
It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer. Charlotte was both.
E. B. White1899–1985Charlotte’s Web, last lines
- Friendship
How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.
Henry David Thoreau1817–1862August 19, 1851
- Life & Death
Nothing is harder to understand than a symbolic work. A symbol always transcends the one who makes use of it and makes him say in reality more than he is aware of expressing.
Albert Camus1913–1960The Myth of Sisyphus (1942)
- Art
No place affords a more striking conviction of the vanity of human hopes than a public library.
Samuel Johnson1709–1784The Rambler (1750–1752), No. 106 (23 March 1751)
- Fame