Writing Advice Quotes

Only something extremely dire and disabling will ever stop a real writer from writing. Retirement is never an option.

Respect and love your readers. Write for the reader.

about clichés. Avoid them like the plague.

Speed is not always a constituent to great work, the process of creation should be given time and thought.

You must learn to be three people at once: writer, character, and reader.

You can only write by putting words on a paper one at a time.

When I am grown up I shall carry a notebook—a fat book with many pages, methodically lettered. I shall enter my phrases.

But if you don't understand that story is character and not just idea, you will not be able to breathe life into even the most intriguing flash of inspiration.

it's been my experience that most writers don't talk about their craft--they just do it

Writer advice... Write. Finish things. Go for walks. Read a lot & outside your comfort zone. Stay interested. Daydream. Write.

Never give advice to your children unless you have it in writing and notarized.

My main piece of advice would be dont worry about being published - just write a really good book, but also dont be afraid to write a bad book. Give yourself permission to fail, and dont be afraid.

The advice I have for new artists is this - write great songs and play them live as often as possible. Get residencies all over town and crush it.

My advice: write down everything you eat. It's amazing what that "self honesty" can do for you. (Do you really want to have to confess that doughnut? I thought not.)

The best writing advice I ever got was "Keep moving forward, don't retreat into rewrites." The worst came from a book that said "Writing fiction is like telling lies," which just seems stupid to me.

But let the wise be warned against too great readiness at explanation: it multiplies the sources of mistake, lengthening the sum for reckoners sure to go wrong.

Only God gets it right the first time and only a slob says, "Oh well, let it go, that's what copyeditors are for.

Up in that room I decided that I would write one story about each thing that I knew about. I was trying to do this all the time I was writing, and it was good and severe discipline.

Don't let yourself slip and get any perfect characters... keep them people, people, people, and don't let them get to be symbols.

Prose is architecture, not interior decoration.

You need to take out the stuff that’s just sitting there and doing nothing. No slackers allowed! All meat, no filler!

... when editors were flattered, they would sometimes give in on some of their mad ideas.

Use what you stand for and what you oppose as a foundation to write great content that resonates with readers and creates a ripple effect.

But if you needed to HAVE AN IDEA, boredom could be to a roadblocked novel what chemotherapy was to a cancer patient.

Trying to write something of permanent value is a full-time job.

I do a lot of rewriting. It’s very painful.

Saepa stilum vertas, iterum quae digna legi sint scripturas. (Turn the stylus [to erase] often if you would write something worthy of being reread.)

What you don't write is often more important than what you do

Sometimes it helps to pick out one person-a real person you know, or an imagined person-and write to that one.

To be a writer, you must write. To be a published writer you must finish what you write and then get what you've written in front of the outside world.

Maugham then offers the greatest advice anyone could give to a young author: "At the end of an interrogation sentence, place a question mark. You'd be surprised how effective it can be.

You need the devotion to your work that a priest of God has for his.

The highest duty of the writer is to remain true to himself and let the chips fall where they may. In serving his vision of the truth the artist best serves his nation.

If someone wanted to be a runner, you don't tell them to think about running, you tell them to run. And the same simple idea applies to writing, I hope.

Honesty makes stories real and characters memorable. From there, taking them to where they need to go will be all the development they need.

...consider yourself a functional character in someone else's novel - a background character - a person on the street - that's the perspective ...

Believe in yourself and start achieving your dream. It waits for you on the other side of the publish button.

Daily life is always extraordinary when rendered precisely. We can unlock our lives with a pencil tip.

It can be done. It will be done.

Education is a cycle of reading, thinking and writing.

We don’t read to observe the character from a distance. We read to become the character and experience the conflicts and rewards they are experiencing.

Let at least one word of my writings impregnate the reader's heart.

A watched pot never boils." It's the same with success. So? Throw that burner on HIGH and just keep on cooking. Dinner will be ready soon.

What are minnows but brief flashes? And what are thoughts? And how do you capture a brief flash, even for a second?

While the goal of a book is to create a positive emotional experience for the reader, the goal of the opening is to set the stage, to pull the reader in.

The key to high concept is that fresh twist. Make it a big one. Wow your reader. Force her to gasp when she comes to that part in your story.

First drafts don’t have to be perfect. They just have to be written.

I will continue to write moral stories in rhymed couplets. But I should be thrice a fool if I did it for aught but my own entertainment.

One idea to a sentence is still the best advice that anyone has ever given on writing.

You have to finish things — that’s what you learn from, you learn by finishing things.