Quotes about Writing

"If any man wish to write in a clear style, let him be first clear in his thoughts; and if any would write in a noble style, let him first possess a noble soul."
-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"In certain kinds of writing, particularly in art criticism and literary criticism, it is normal to come across long passages which are almost completely lacking in meaning."
-George Orwell

"A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus: 1. What am I trying to say? 2. What words will express it? 3. What image or idiom will make it clearer? 4. Is this image fresh enough to have an effect?"
-George Orwell

"Good writing is like a windowpane."
-George Orwell

"I wrote a thousand words every day."
-Jack London

"The reserve of modern assertions is sometimes pushed to extremes, in which the fear of being contradicted leads the writer to strip himself of almost all sense and meaning."
-Sir Winston Churchill

"The man who writes about himself and his own time is the only man who writes about all people and all time."
-George Bernard Shaw

"The best way to become acquainted with a subject is to write a book about it."
-Benjamin Disraeli

"Writing, when properly managed, (as you may be sure I think mine is) is but a different name for conversation."
-Laurence Sterne

"All my life I've looked at words as though I were seeing them for the first time."
-Ernest Hemingway

"Words, once they are printed, have a life of their own."
-Carol Burnett

"Arranging a bowl of flowers in the morning can give a sense of quiet in a crowded day - like writing a poem, or saying a prayer."
-Anne Morrow Lindbergh

"I must write it all out, at any cost. Writing is thinking. It is more than living, for it is being conscious of living."
-Anne Morrow Lindbergh

"Writing and rewriting are a constant search for what it is one is saying."
-John Updike

"The desire to write grows with writing."
-Desiderius Erasmus

"I write lustily and humorously. It isn't calculated; it's the way I think. I've invented a writing style that expresses who I am."
-Erica Jong

"Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man."
-Sir Francis Bacon

"Say all you have to say in the fewest possible words, or your reader will be sure to skip them; and in the plainest possible words or he will certainly misunderstand them."
-John Ruskin

"This is the sixth book I've written, which isn't bad for a guy who's only read two."
-George F. Burns

"Typos are very important to all written form. It gives the reader something to look for so they aren't distracted by the total lack of content in your writing."
-Randy K. Milholland

"This is pretty much what journals are all about, at least to me. I knew as I wrote them that even though they provided an excellent place for brain (and heart, and psyche) dump, they were mainly a map of me."
-Colleen Wainwright

"Let us tenderly and kindly cherish, therefore, the means of knowledge. Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write."
-John Adams

"Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it."
-C. S. Lewis

"Don't use words too big for the subject. Don't say 'infinitely' when you mean 'very'; otherwise you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite."
-C. S. Lewis

"I don't think anyone should write their autobiography until after they're dead."
-Samuel Goldwyn

"I wish I could write as mysterious as a cat."
-Edgar Allan Poe

"Literature is an occupation in which you have to keep proving your talent to people who have none."
-Jules Renard

"Writing is the only profession where no one considers you ridiculous if you earn no money."
-Jules Renard