Writers Writing about Writing

The last few days have been a bit intense, talking about my new book, talking about writing, and all that. Sometimes I’m in dire need of stepping outside of myself. If I could, I’d read The Little Prince to you, but that isn’t possible. So instead I’d like to share with you some quotations I’ve collected by writers on the subject of their own writing.

If a writer knows enough about what he is writing about, he may omit things that he knows. The dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one ninth of it being above water. ~ Ernest Hemingway

The only thing to be said this time about Fear & Loathing is that it was fun to write and that’s fair, for me at least because I’ve always considered writing the most hateful kind of work. ~ Hunter S. Thompson

“While I’m writing, I’m far away;
and when I come back, I’ve gone.”
~ Pablo Neruda

Great literature is simply language charged with meaning to the utmost possible degree. ~ Ezra Pound

Nothing stinks like a pile of unpublished writing. ~ Sylvia Plath

If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn’t brood. I’d type a little faster. ~ Isaac Asimov

A famous writer who wants to continue writing has to be constantly defending himself against fame. ~ Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Write without pay until somebody offers to pay. ~ Mark Twain

Writing is like prostitution. First you do it for love, and then for a few close friends, and then for money. ~ Moliere

If I don’t write to empty my mind, I go mad. ~ Byron

Poets need not go to Niagara to write about the force of falling water. ~ Robert Frost

Everywhere I go I’m asked if I think the university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don’t stifle enough of them. ~ Flannery O’Connor

It took me fifteen years to discover that I had no talent for writing, but I couldn’t give it up because by that time I was too famous. ~ Robert Benchley

I am the literary equivalent of a Big Mac and fries.~ Stephen King

In my writing I am acting as a map maker, an explorer of psychic areas, a cosmonaut of inner space, and I see no point in exploring areas that have already been thoroughly surveyed. ~ William S. Burroughs

Be careful that you do not write or paint anything that is not your own, that you don’t know in your own soul. ~ Emily Carr

The art of writing is the art of discovering what you believe. ~ Gustave Flaubert

I think I did pretty well, considering I started out with nothing but a bunch of blank paper. ~ Steve Martin

A professional writer is an amateur who didn’t quit. ~ Richard Bach

Related posts:

1. The Art of Journal Writing
2. Jobs for Writers

Tagged as: quotations