The Writing Life Quotes

The night before a deadline, I usually am in desperate need of a back rub. And new wrists. And candy. And little mice to secretly finish the job while I am sleeping.

If you do not want to be forgotten as soon as you are dead...be read, or try coming back and pull the feet of those who are still alive instead!

A writer writes. There are no exceptions to this reality. No excuses. Stop wasting time talking about your stories and get them on paper.

Love the work: the grind, the dreaming, the distracted not-sleep, all of it. It’s the one thing in the job that will always be there, and the real pleasure in the profession. Everything else is luck.

Writing is more about telling other peoples' stories than your own

Writing at its best is simply taking dictation from your soul.

Writing is one means to investigate the mystique of life. Each fresh page is an unsullied canvas that an inquisitive writer employs to explore the poetic transience behind their existence.

As a writer, the main skill you need is curiosity. As a reader, the main tool you need is open-mindedness.

When I write, it feels like there are two little creatures that sit on each of my shoulders. One whispers, "You can do this. You've got what it takes." The other sounds like my mother-in-law.

There’s really only one good writing habit: You must write constantly.

My book sales are way down today. Also, I've received two scathing reviews. One of them calls me “a purveyor of insipid wet-dreams.

Time to turn some phrases and place them on these here pages.

The act of putting pen to paper encourages pause for thought, this in turn makes us think more deeply about life, which helps us regain our equilibrium.

What do you do when your head - your imagination is filled with tales to last a hundred lifetimes?You focus on the really good ones!

A writing day is like any other day. Except I live in my pajamas, I forget to eat, and I suddenly look up, wondering when day turned into night.

My best writing happens when I’m fighting to produce it.

I just slept for fifteen hours straight. Yes, writing a musical is THAT exhausting!

Because. Everything worth anything takes time.

Essential characteristic of the really great novelist: a Christ-like all-embracing compassion.

Sometimes we don't know where we are going until we get there.

The power of writing supernaturally set things into motion.

Life has a vendetta against writers. It does everything in it's power to get in the way of our craft. Maybe it thinks we embellish too much?

Who thought up the dumb idea to arrange the memoir section in the bookstore by subject?

If you surrender to your imagination, the story will write itself.

We write to give strength to our soul and to inspire spirit of other souls.

One day, I decided I was going to write books forever.

It's all mine, it's all sacred.

We all have a place within us, that would like to rewrite the way our life was written out for us....That's why people want to become authors.

We write to share the deepest heart-talk of our souls.

I before E except after C. Weird?By rebelling against the rules the word itself denotes its very meaning: of strange or extraordinary character, odd, fantastic.I think all writers are weird.

Life baffles me most days. Maybe that's why I write. To try and make sense of it all.

Sometimes writing is just rubbing words together long enough to make a fire.

Writing is the spectrum through which the chaos of life can be seen, studied and understood.

Every book contains a secret – even the writer doesn't always know what it is.

A daily written thankful gratitude is a heavenly blessing.

Be brave to share your story! Each of our stories, have a golden treasure for a specific need.

Writing isn't only about a completed piece of work.It’s about the writer you’re becoming while creating.

Collaborating on a film script involves two people sitting in a room separated by the silence of two minds working together.

Writing can be a long and winding road or a straightforward march to the finish.What matters is that you enjoy the journey.

I’m proud to be a writer. I’m doing the job all my heroes did.

We can help the next generation, with the stories we write today.

I’ve had a fountain pen surgically implanted in my left index finger to save trouble. My body is tattooed with line upon line of truth, fiction, and a not-always-pleasing mix of the two.

When I pour a bowl of Uncle Sam’s cereal, I never know if I should stand when I eat, salute it first, or simply hum the Star Spangled Banner between mouthfuls.

Most people assume I write at night because of the kind of books I write, but I can shut out the light with my mind.

Today is the day that you create worlds, you change lives, you make a something, a someone, out of nothing.Today is the day you become a writer.

Discipline is the bridge between a great idea and a completed novel.

Anecdotes don't make good stories. Dig down so far that what finally comes out is not even what you thought it was about.

An author is like an incompetent bricklayer - doesn't use mortar and keeps rearranging the bricks until someone tells him to stop.

The feeling that the work is magnificent, and the feeling that it is abominable, are both mosquitoes to be repelled, ignored, or killed, but not indulged.

You can read in the space of a coffin, and you can write in the space of a toolshed meant for mowers and spades.