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Quotes about writing

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Science Fiction writers, I am sorry to say, really do not know anything. We can’t talk about science because our knowledge of it is limited and unofficial, and usually our fiction is dreadful.
Philip K. Dick1928–1982“How to Build a Universe That Doesn’t Fall Apart Two Days Later” (1978)
This is my letter to the world,
That never wrote to me,⁠—
The simple news that Nature told,
With tender majesty.
Emily Dickinson1830–1886This is my letter to the World (1890)In context
- Nature
I think the author who speaks about his own books is almost as bad as a mother who talks about her own children.
Benjamin Disraeli1804–1881Speech at a banquet given by the city of Glasgow on his installation as Lord Rector of Glasgow University (19 November 1873), cited in Wit and Wisdom of Benjamin Disraeli (1881), p. 16
More than kisses, letters mingle souls.
John Donne1572–1631Verse Letter to Sir Henry Wotton, written before April 1598, line 1
Some editors are failed writers, but so are most writers.
T. S. Eliot1888–1965
Mr. Aldous Huxley, who is perhaps one of those people who have to perpetrate thirty bad novels before producing a good one, has a certain natural — but little developed — aptitude for seriousness.
T. S. Eliot1888–1965“The Contemporary English Novelist”, La Nouvelle Revue française (1 May 1927)
- Clever Jabs
The artist doesn’t have time to listen to the critics. The ones who want to be writers read the reviews, the ones who want to write don’t have the time to read reviews.
William Faulkner1897–1962Paris Review interview (1958)
- Art
Show me a hero and I will write you a tragedy.
F. Scott Fitzgerald1896–1940Notebook E (1945) edited by Edmund Wilson
The art of writing is the art of discovering what you believe.
Gustave Flaubert1821–1880
An author in his book must be like God in the universe, present everywhere and visible nowhere.
Gustave Flaubert1821–1880Letters to Madame Louise Colet, 9 December 1852
If God could tell the story of the Universe, the Universe would become fictitious.
E. M. Forster1879–1970Aspects of the Novel (1927), Chapter Three: People
- God
Most of life is so dull that there is nothing to be said about it, and the books and talk that would describe it as interesting are obliged to exaggerate, in the hope of justifying their own existence.
E. M. Forster1879–1970A Passage to India (1924), Part II: Caves, Chapter XIVIn context
- Life & Death
Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.
Benjamin Franklin1706–1790
- Reading
If all printers were determined not to print anything till they were sure it would offend nobody, there would be very little printed.
Benjamin Franklin1706–1790“Apology for Printers” (1730)
- Freedom
- Journalism
No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader.
Robert Frost1874–1963The Figure a Poem Makes (1939)