Inspirational Writing Quotes & Sayings

Writing a book is a blood sport. If it doesn't hurt when you're done, you're probably doing something wrong. — Kevis Hendrickson

Don't confuse the darkness that's leaving with the light that's coming in. — A.D. Posey

There are two kinds of writing: the one you write and the one that writes you. — Jeanette Winterson

I don't trust men everybody likes. Being nice isn't the same as being good. — Sarah Rees Brennan

Style jazzes up your canvas. — A.D. Posey

Only a writer holds conversations between people that don't exist. We don't talk to ourselves. We talk to people we created from nothing.
#FromTheInternet #AuthorUnknown — Unknown

To all the talented young men who wander about feeling that there is nothing in the world for them to do, I should say: 'Give up trying to write, and, instead, try not to write. Go out into the world; become a pirate, a king in Borneo, a labourer in Soviet Russia; give yourself an existence in which the satisfaction of elementary physical needs will occupy almost all your energies.' I do not recommend this course of action to everyone, but only to those who suffer from the disease which Mr Krutch diagnoses. I believe that, after some years of such an existence, the ex-intellectual will fin that in spite of is efforts he can no longer refrain from writing, and when this time comes his writing will not seem to him futile. — Bertrand Russell

The statement 'There is nothing more American than an Indian' happens to be a multidimensional paradox. Try and not say too many of those. That might open your mind to ideas that could cause sanity point loss. — Charles Slagle

I begin my life. I live again. I meet a young girl called Valeria. She smiles easily. She laughs tender sounds that pull at my heart. I'm too young to be profound but she makes me feel so safe. So cherished. I am thirty years old. I bump into a woman I knew when she was a girl. Valeria looks annoyed to see me. She lives in the future. Where the world is turning. I live within the past. Where the people are trapped and screaming and alone. I live within the past when Valeria and I were in love. She's waiting for the cab to come, her foot tapping against the sidewalk. Her eyes glancing at her watch every few minutes. I'm eager to reunite our lives through some kind of friendship. I'm so eager to know her again, as she was when she was a child. But Valeria lives within the future. I live within the past. Have the two ever gotten along? Have they ever even met? — F.K. Preston

You are your own journey. — A.D. Posey

Creativity is divine. — A.D. Posey

Write your dreams in journal,note book, card or on a cork. When you pen down your dreams, an a inner strength and divine power is activated for your to work towards the fulfillment of your dreams. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Literary censorship should not be necessary within the parameters of the law because it's simply a reflection of prevailing social prejudices!

Writing should challenge and change prevailing ideas - churning the guts and ruffling feathers of friends, family and society. Antagonizing is a product of open writing. Expecting less is resignation and stagnation that slides the art into the status-quo.

Writing needs the wider view that shows the causality of our prevailing social prejudice - and shakes at its foundation.

Writers spare us no less and please leave your praise and oppugn to Christopher Hitchens. — Jack Tar

The thing is, Fallon ... I told you before to lock the door if you wanted me to stay out. Funny thing is ... " I leaned in. "You. Never. Did. — Penelope Douglas

Fiction is art and art is the triumph over chaos ... to celebrate a world that lies spread out around us like a bewildering and stupendous dream. — John Cheever

The last thing we decide in writing a book is what to put first. — Blaise Pascal

Keep me up till five because all your stars are out, and for no other reason ... Oh dare to do it Buddy! Trust your heart. You're a deserving craftsman. It would never betray you. Good night. I'm feeling very much over-excited now, and a little dramatic, but I think I'd give almost anything on earth to see you writing a something, an anything, a poem, a tree, that was really and truly after your own heart. — J.D. Salinger

To be playful is not to be trivial or frivolous, or to act as if nothing of consequence will happen. On the contrary, when we are playful ... everything that happens is of consequence, for seriousness is a dread of the unpredictable outcome of open possibility. To be serious is to press for a specified conclusion. To be playful is to allow for unlimited possibility. — James P. Carse

I'd rather be a fool than afraid. — A.D. Posey

Perfectionism means that you try not to leave so much mess to clean up. But clutter and mess show us that life is being lived. — Anne Lamott

When One Great Scorer comes to write against your name, He marks, not that you won or lost, but how you played the game. — Grantland Rice

Drafting is like painting the Golden Gate Bridge.
The closer you get to the end, the more you start to worry about the beginning. — Peter James West

When we think, we hurt. When we feel, we heal. — A.D. Posey

Yes, it was scary, but every time I got a frisson of fear I tried to remember what Frank Quinn was always telling me. "Susan, believe in yourself. You are the person writing your story. — Susan Boyle

If I could just capture each memory in a bottle the maybe you people would understand how much I've suffered, how much I've been through, but most importantly how far I have come. — Tommy Tran

Never chase people in your life. No one is worthier than you to be chased. — Avijeet Das

Any man who keeps working is not a failure. He may not be a great writer, but if he applies the old-fashioned virtues of hard, constant labor, he'll eventually make some kind of career for himself as writer.
[1967 interview] — Ray Bradbury

Walk in truth. Leave footprints of honesty. — A.D. Posey

Accept nothing. Challenge everything. — A.D. Posey

Follow the path of your aroused thought, and you will soon meet this infernal inscription: There is nothing so beautiful as that which does not exist. — Paul Valery

The best writing is embarrassing; that's all there is to it. — A.D. Posey

Work. Don't Think. Relax. — Ray Bradbury

If I only had one reader in my entire life, that reader would be all that I needed to continue writing. — Joseph Eastwood

My writings are the mirror of my soul and the dance of my mind. — Debasish Mridha

To my mind, the most important thing in any form of fiction is the human element, but only if it takes us beyond the everyday, into situations that examine the complexities that may fascinate or puzzle us. To dwell on the mundane as some kind of a writing exeercise is useless. — Graham Worthington

As of this writing, I am twenty-five years old. I have been alive for 307 months. Nine of those months were pretty terrible. But 298 of those months have been very good. I have been happy. I have been very blessed. Who knows how many more months I have to live? But even if I died tomorrow, nine out of 307 seems like pretty good odds. — Elizabeth Smart

The proverb, "Where there's a will.." sums it up for a writer who had just started in his writing life; for himself, the fictional characters and the audience of his works. It's a trinity of perspectives; one of his struggle, another of the story character which he writes about and the last one of the reader's expectation of his protagonists. — Lucas Michael

Writing is the great invention of the world. — Abraham Lincoln

Doubt: How can I know? Truth: How can you not? — A.D. Posey

It's the witching hour once more-
When the Muse comes out to play.
He calls me through that magic door-
Where galaxies of worlds await! — Belle Whittington

Once you realize life is magic, you will never look upon the world with dimmed eyes again. — A.D. Posey

In order to write about the machine you have to know it, to live with it, to love it (or hate it). I think that true writing could be done on industrial subjects by people who work in industry, who are firmly linked with it. But ... and here is the opposite 'but', the technology of literary craftsmanship is itself a very fine and complex matter. Qualified specialists from industry prove themselves dilettantes in the field of literature. The needed synthesis is not yet in sight. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

See this? I wrote this piece two years ago, after my parents died. I was angry. I was hurt. I wrote down exactly what I was feeling. When I read it now, I don't share those same feelings. Do I regret writing it? No. Because there's a chance that someone in this very room may relate to this. It might mean something to them. — Colleen Hoover

Only assholes talk about writing — Charles Bukowski

Fear is the enemy of success. — A.D. Posey

What is a miracle if not the manifestation of light where darkness is expected? — Leigh Ann Henion

I write because I want to fall in love with love over and over again — Anamika Mishra

A childhood filled with adventures, happiness and unabated love.
If only I could remember ... — Lynda Fisher

Think of yourself as an incandescent power, illuminated and perhaps forever talked to by God and his messengers. — Brenda Ueland

Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it. — Brian Kernighan

Everything I did was pure love. Pure love. And if you live that way, you've had a great life. - 'Ray Bradbury: the last interview and other conversations' by Sam Weller (p.92) — Ray Bradbury

Writing is not a great profession as a lot of writers proclaim. I write because this is something I can do. Another thing - very often I think a lot of writers write because they have failed to do other things. How many writers can't drive? A lot. They're not practical. They are not capable in everyday life. — Ha Jin

I treat my writing life like a fabulous, enchanting lover, because that is what it is to me. Something that is terribly time consuming, delicious and time-stopping. I have missed important meetings for love, and I will continue to put my writing life in the same position. My writing life is the lover at the center, not the neglected cranky demanding millstone, my ball and chain.
When you are love, truly and passionately, you don't have to write down in your daily schedule "Spend quality time with Lover today. You can't not. — Heather Sellers

Most of us have a soundtrack running in the background of our lives. I access that soundtrack when I write. — Robin M. Helm

I eat, breath and sleep and that makes me like everyone else. When I write, I become something much greater than flesh & bone; something that will stay behind long after that part of me is gone. Writing makes me special, readers make me everlasting. — C.K. Webb

I am a creator, writing like the wind, I carry the weight of a future world in the barrel of a pen, etching my characters into the paper with life giving ink so my dreams and reality might finally meet. — L.M. Fields

An opportunity lost may have motivated us to find a satisfying alternative. Adversity or suffering may have taught us certain important skills. Some writers have felt new appreciation for their lives after surviving a serious illness or disability. A fortunate outcome does not invalidate the unfortunate aspect. — Nan Merrick Phifer

If you want to write a fantasy story with Norse gods, sentient robots, and telepathic dinosaurs, you can do just that. Want to throw in a vampire and a lesbian unicorn while you're at it? Go ahead. Nothing's off limits. But the endless possibility of the genre is a trap. It's easy to get distracted by the glittering props available to you and forget what you're supposed to be doing: telling a good story. Don't get me wrong, magic is cool. But a nervous mother singing to her child at night while something moves quietly through the dark outside her house? That's a story. Handled properly, it's more dramatic than any apocalypse or goblin army could ever be. — Patrick Rothfuss

To write is to transform that inward gaze into words, to study the worlds into which we pass when we retire into ourselves, and to do so with patience, obstinacy, and joy. — Orhan Pamuk

I am an architect of words; there is no limit to the number of 'stories' I can create! — Traci M. Sanders

Not everything can stand the test of time, but a story can. — A.D. Posey

Turning things over and over in isolation had led me to a certain point, but I knew that to get any further I'd have to voice some ideas aloud, just to see how they sounded. But I certainly didn't go to Ellie expecting any kind of constructive input on her part. It was more that I'd hit a wall and needed someone to talk around the subject with - like when you come up against a problem that's just immune to normal logic. — Gavin Extence

Tell your story. Don't try and tell the stories that other people can tell. Any starting writer starts out with other people's voices. But as quickly as you can start telling the stories that only you can tell, because there will always be better writers than you and there will always be smarter writers than you, but you are the only you. — Neil Gaiman

The more you read, the more you write, and the more you free yourself to do so, the better writer you will become. — A.D. Posey

Life isn't life without real butter. — A.D. Posey

In love there is truth, and in truth there is peace. — A.D. Posey

When I was teaching children I began every day writing this on the blackboard: "Do to others what you would like them to do to you", telling them how much better the world would be if everybody lived by this rule. — Common

Isolation is a gift. Everything else is just a test of your endurance. You will be alone with the Gods. Your nights will flame with fire. — Charles Bukowski

Listen to what the sky is telling you. — A.D. Posey

Lead with your heart. The rest will follow. — A.D. Posey

Whenever people ask me, "How are your books doing?" or, "How is your book doing?" I just say, "It's okay." I mean, what am I supposed to say? I'm a writer; that means I write because I need to write, because that's how I breathe and that's how I bleed. I'm not an author; I'm a writer. Even when I don't want to write; I can't stop! So, how are my books doing? The hell I know! The moment after I publish one book, I'm writing another one! I don't know how my books are doing! I just know that I'm writing them! I'm a writer, I'm a writer. I'm not an author. — C. JoyBell C.

I don't believe in writers' block. Do doctors have 'doctors block?' Do plumbers have 'plumbers' block?" No. We all have days when we don't feel like working, but why do writers turn that into something so damn special by giving it a faintly romantic name. — Larry Kahaner

Writing is like a camera. You see the world from a different lens. — Robert Ahaness

May you will have the grace to complete the task. — Lailah Gifty Akita

I want to become the favorite song of my own uprising. I want to see the most forgotten, unused part of my soul the one which for years I kept closed out of spite, find the courage to go up to my mind and start writing liberation slogans across its highest fences. — Angelos Michalopoulos

Read. Learn. Write. Travel. — Lailah Gifty Akita

I would rather spend money on something, that fulfills me for eternity. Rather, than something that fulfills me for only an hour or two. — Mary Sage Nguyen

Write about the thing that scares you most or your most private confession and you'll never have a problem coming up with decent fiction. — Don Roff

Why do I write? Because I like telling stories and I don't like repeating myself (insert chuckle here). — Najeev Raj Nadarajah

When you write a story, don't just write it - live it;
When putting words into the mouth of a protagonist (or any character) imagine yourself saying them and while writing about the reaction of the listener, write it the way you would react.
Let the conversations not be meant merely to be read but felt as well.
If you do not feel what you write; how can you expect the readers to feel it? — Arti Honrao

Getting a spark of inspiration to write is the best feeling in the world, no matter what time it is...I get a feeling on the inside that urges me to get up from whatever I am doing, grabbing that pen and writing down whatever my heart and mind tell me too... it's beautiful." — Sontia Levy-Mason

Open your arms to the world. — A.D. Posey

I wasn't sure what I'd done to deserve such a wonderful gift, and I wasn't sure if it was insolent, but I thanked God for fallen angels. — Jamie McGuire

We write from soul of the heart. — Lailah Gifty Akita

There are no humans left. I should not be alone. I can't help but wonder that. There were so many of us living. But time started growing young four years ago. It isn't four years anymore. It's a number I wouldn't even be able to say. It feels like four years. It's trapped in my tender memory as four years. It's been an age. Multiple ages. It's been lifetimes; every single lifetime that used to exist. I remember my mother screaming. I recall the doctors naming me as nurses wiped away her blood and covered her face with white. The end of the play. It's been so long. Why am I alone? — F.K. Preston

Write truthfully, write from the heart, and your words will live. — A.D. Posey

To walk quietly until the miracle in everything speaks is poetry, whether we write it down or not. — Mark Nepo

I write because when I look out at the world...I want to write it. When I look out at the world, I want to help it; and somehow, I feel as though by writing, I just might. — Ryan J. Pemberton

Do not write a check with your tongue that your actions cannot cash. — Neal A. Maxwell

Even on the silent days, believe your ship will come. — Shana Chartier

Writing is my life,a God given gift; no one on this planet can separate me from it. — Euginia Herlihy

Some people write to make something ugly beautiful, some write to leave a part of themselves to be remembered, some write to give words soul and meaning, and some write to exist in non-existence. — Sam Madison

There is no right or wrong way to write a novel. Each journey is different for every individual work and for every writer. The first error is never to begin; the second is never to finish. — Don Roff

If you wait for inspiration to write you're not a writer, you're a waiter. — Dan Poynter

I knew that, when needed, mountains would move for me. — Norman Maclean

Writers are sponges. They absorb life, then squeeze and ring it out onto a page. Sometimes, if they squeeze too hard, they dry up. Not hard enough and they remain saturated, heavy and unpredictable, as they carry around a volume of ideas too great for their capacity. — Sarah Colliver

Rocks and minerals: the oldest storytellers. — A.D. Posey

Reading books makes us more attentive to our personage and the aesthetic world that we live in. Writers that we idolize use language, logic, and nuance to paint physical and emotional scenes with refined precision. A writer's use of vivid language creates lingering aftereffects that work their wonder on the reader's malleable mind. A stirred mind resurrects our semiconscious memories; it causes us to summon up enduring images of our family, friends, and acquaintances. Just as importantly, inspirational writing makes us recognize our own telling character traits and identify our formerly unexpressed thoughts and feelings. — Kilroy J. Oldster

We write our deepest thoughts. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Somehow, we were passing the boundaries of language and finding clarity in shared thought, even if we were just talking about beer! — Gerry Abbey