Writer Humor Quotes & Sayings

Now, there is a tendency at a point like this to look over one's shoulder at the cover artist and start going on at length about leather, tightboots and naked blades.
Words like 'full', 'round' and even 'pert' creep into the narrative, until the writer has to go and have a cold shower and a lie down.
Which is all rather silly, because any woman setting out to make a living by the sword isn't about to go around looking like something off the cover of the more advanced kind of lingerie catalogue for the specialized buyer.
Oh well, all right. The point that must be made is that although Herrena the Henna-Haired Harridan would look quite stunning after a good bath, a heavy-duty manicure, and the pick of the leather racks in Woo Hun Ling's Oriental Exotica and Martial Aids on Heroes Street, she was currently quite sensibly dressed in light chain mail, soft boots, and a short sword.
All right, maybe the boots were leather. But not black. — Terry Pratchett

I'm very confident that Nick Hornby always gets it right as a writer. He has the vernacular and passion. He is adroit and dry, and balances humor with the humanity of life. — Pierce Brosnan

Some major writers have a huge impact, like Ayn Rand, who to my mind is a lousy fiction writer because her writing has no compassion and virtually no humor. She has a philosophical and economical message that she is passing off as fiction, but it really isn't fiction at all. — Theodore Sturgeon

Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales was expected to clock in at anywhere between 100 and 120 chapters. Unfortunately, the dude only managed to finish 24 tales before he suffered an insurmountable and permanent state of writer's block commonly known as death. — Jacopo Della Quercia

I don't spend money on books. I write them myself. — Ljupka Cvetanova

If I could split myself into five people, I would still be behind on my writing schedule. I see now why James Patterson cloned himself so many times. — Peter James West

What surer sign is there that the creative aquifers are dry than a writer creating a writer-character? — David Mitchell

Writer's block is just a symptom of feeling like you have nothing to say, combined with the rather weird idea that you should feel the need to say something. Why? If you have something to say, then say it. If not, enjoy the silence while it lasts. The noise will return soon enough. — Hugh MacLeod

A writer flirts with schizophrenia, nurtures synesthesia, and embraces obsessive-compulsive disorder. Your art feeds on you, your soul, and, yes, to a degree, your sanity. Writing novels worth reading will bugger up your mind, jeopardize your relationships, and distend your life. You have been warned. — David Mitchell

A good writer can fake being an expert in anything - even men's underwear. — Greg Dybec

I'm not asking you to come reverently or unquestioningly; I'm not asking you to be politically correct or cast aside your sense of humor (please God you have one). This isn't a popularity contest, it's not the moral Olympics, and it's not church. But it's Writing, damn it, not washing the car or putting on eyeliner. If you can take it seriously, we can do business. If you can't or won't, it's time for you to close the book and do something else. Wash the car, maybe. — Stephen King

Come on brain, think of things
Come on brain, think of things
Come on brain, be so smart — Lin-Manuel Miranda

Life's too short, drive it like ya stole it! — Debra L. Hartmann

Part of my life no longer made sense. A life of meetings stretched between appointments, half listening to people, always running late. A life dictated by clocks and money and computers and cars, without hawks and lakes and wild roses. A world increasingly without surprise or humor. I thought of how we as a species have endangered not only animals and plants around us but the wild nature of our own lives. We have fabricated this world, to paraphrase the writer Phillip Sherrard, and our punishment is that we have to adapt to it. — Norah Gallagher

The writer's Queen Victoria is his public, and he would do well to keep a bust of the old Queen on his desk with the legend "We are not amused" hanging from it. — Henry Watson Fowler

If I behave like a good boy and take my Prozac ... then I won't be able to write anymore.
I'll have Writer's block from not being able to communicate with the characters in my mind. — Timothy Pina

But my mother was aglow. She had a continuing fascination with celebrities, and now she had one of her own. She was never moved by what I was doing (in an interview she said, "He writes his own material, I'm always telling him he needs a new writer") ... — Steve Martin

Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamp-post what it feels about dogs.
[Time Magazine, October 31, 1977] — John Osborne

Words--Midnight coined and daily spent. . .writer of the dream.
--Jim Ross Author, Rays: Wherever They Touch — Jim Ross

I have so many people in my head, I can't keep up with the real people around me. But it's okay, I'm a writer. — Shannon Taylor Vannatter

I have been definitely influenced more by Latin American writers than by any other type of writer. They are very close in terms of voice - their humor, their fatalism, their ... well, that over-used term 'magical realism.' It's a wonderful term that's just been used so much, we don't know what it means anymore. — Jessica Hagedorn

He was a writer and words were his weapons. — Christopher Moore

I'm a writer," she declared before she drained the glass. "I should learn about everything. — Mary Cox

Miss Austen's novels ... seem to me vulgar in tone, sterile in artistic invention, imprisoned in the wretched conventions of English society, without genius, wit, or knowledge of the world. Never was life so pinched and narrow. The one problem in the mind of the writer ... is marriageableness. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

I have this one nasty habit. Makes me hard to live with. I write ...
... writing is antisocial. It's as solitary as masturbation. Disturb a writer when he is in the throes of creation and he is likely to turn and bite right to the bone ... and not even know that he's doing it. As writers' wives and husbands often learn to their horror ...
... there is no way that writers can be tamed and rendered civilized. Or even cured. In a household with more than one person, of which one is a writer, the only solution known to science is to provide the patient with an isolation room, where he can endure the acute stages in private, and where food can be poked in to him with a stick. Because, if you disturb the patient at such times, he may break into tears or become violent. Or he may not hear you at all ... and, if you shake him at this stage, he bites ... — Robert A. Heinlein

A realist writer might break his protagonist's leg, or kill his fiancee; but a science fiction writer will immolate whole planets, and whilst doing so he will be more concerned with the placement of commas than the screams of the dying. — Adam Roberts

Sure, it will be hard, but all you need to be a writer is perseverance, a low-level alcohol dependency, and a questionable moral compass. — Anna Kendrick

BIO'GRAPHER: A writer of lives; a relator not of the history of nations, but of the actions of particular persons. — Samuel Johnson

I'd like to have money. And I'd like to be a good writer. These two can come together, and I hope they will, but if that's too adorable, I'd rather have money. — Dorothy Parker

Although I don't know for sure, I'd bet my dog and lot that John Grisham never worked for the mob. All of that is total fabrication (and total fabrication is the fiction-writer's purest delight). He was once a young lawyer, though, and he has clearly forgotten none of the struggle. Nor has he forgotten the location of the various financial pitfalls and honeytraps that make the field of corporate law so difficult. Using plainspun humor as a brilliant counterpoint and never substituting cant for story, he sketches a world of Darwinian struggle where all the savages wear three-piece suits. And - here's the good part - this is a world impossible not to believe. Grisham has been there, spied out the land and the enemy positions, and brought back a full report. He told the truth of what he knew, and for that if nothing else, he deserves every buck The Firm made. — Stephen King

Writer's block is only a failure of the ego. — Norman Mailer

I'm a humor writer, so I don't always present myself in the best light. — Jen Lancaster

As a writer, you must truly possess a love for words."
"Yes, that's right," I agreed.
"I've noticed that some authors favor particular words, making frequent use of them. Do you have a favorite?"
I nodded assuredly and shared my answer. "BECAUSE."
My interviewer looked surprised, as though he'd expected an impressive adjective or some rare verb. "That's your favorite word? Why?"
I tried not to smirk. "Because. — Richelle E. Goodrich

She doesn't understand that a writer is a special creature
that I'm different from everyone else. I'm not saying I'm superior to other people, just more sensitive, I guess. — Christopher Moore

Steve Forman is a brutally funny writer. His no-nonsense, unadorned style begs comparison to Dashiell Hammett, but Hammett's humor at its darkest never hit home this hard. Reading of Eddie Perlmutter's exploits is like rolling in an aisle paved with broken glass and wanting to do it all over again two minutes later. — Loren D. Estleman

Part of my soul goes into each quote I write. A book of my quotes can be yours for just $19.99. — Ryan Lilly

If my penis were a writer/director, it would be Woody Allen - small, neurotic, and, frankly, hit or miss. — Matthew Norman

Being a writer is 1% inspiration, 50% perspiration and 49% explaining you're not a millionaire like J.K.Rowling. — Gabrielle Tozer

So it happened at last: I was about to become a thief, a cheap milk-stealer. Here was your lash-in-the-pen genius, your one story-writer: a thief. — John Fante

Nothing bad can happen to a writer. Everything is material. — Philip Roth

There is something really horrific for any human being who feels he is being consumed by other people. I'm talking about a writer's critics, who don't address what you've written, but want to probe into your existence and magnify the trivia of your life without any sense of humor, without any sense of context. — Wole Soyinka

The other day Father Prior was telling me about a French writer, Jean-Paul Sartre. An existentialist. ... One phrase of his particularly struck me: 'L'enfer c'est les autres.' Do you think he meant that as a joke?"

"I don't think humor's a strong point with existentialists."

"I think it's p-p-poppycock. How can Hell be others? God is manifested in others. God is the Other. That's why the self must lose itself in love for the other. It's the self we must leave behind. Better to say Hell is the Self. L'enfer c'est moi. — Tony Hendra

When your heart starts to feel full again. I love FREE refills, and if a restaurant tries to double charge me, I refuse to write a love poem on their Yelp page.
-Karen Quan and Jarod Kintz — Karen Quan

If I never received a bad review then I wouldn't be a real writer, but I much prefer the good ones — Charity Parkerson

There are certain common privileges of a writer, the benefit whereof I
hope there will be no reason to doubt; particularly, that where I am not
understood, it shall be concluded that something very useful and profound
is couched underneath; and again, that whatever word or sentence
is printed in a different character shall be judged to contain something
extraordinary either of wit or sublime. — Jonathan Swift

The reason why you know more funny dudes than funny chicks is that dudes are funnier than chicks. If my daughter has a mediocre sense of humor, I'm just gonna tell her, 'Be a staff writer for a sitcom. Because they'll have to hire you, they can't really fire you, and you don't have to produce that much. It'll be awesome.' — Adam Carolla

It has often been said
there's so much to be read,
you never can cram
all those words in your head.
So the writer who breeds
more words than he needs
is making a chore
for the reader who reads.
That's why my belief is
the briefer the brief is,
the greater the sigh
of the reader's relief is.
And that's why your books
have such power and strength.
You publish with shorth!
(Shorth is better than length.) — Dr. Seuss

Proceed with caution when you befriend a writer, for if you fall out of their good graces they have the delightful capability of doing any number of dastardly things to you upon the written page. — Bonnie Daly

If you are a writer and you write/understand sarcasm please be thankful to the government and the masses.
Without their hard work and supreme idiotism it wouldn't have been possible.
You owe them the brutal sarcasm, they've earned it! — Himmilicious

Every writer scrounges for inspiration in different places, and there's no shame in raiding the headlines. It's necessary, in fact, when attempting contemporary satire. Sharp-edged humor relies on topical reference points. — Carl Hiaasen

Writer's block' is just a fancy way of saying 'I don't feel like doing any work today. — Meagan Spooner

There are many other little refinements too, Mr. Bohlen. You'll see them all when you study the plans carefully. For example, there's a trick that nearly every writer uses, of inserting at least one long, obscure word into each story. This makes the reader think that the man is very wise and clever. So I have the machine do the same thing. There'll be a whole stack of long words stored away just for this purpose."
Where?"
In the 'word-memory' section," he said, epexegetically. — Roald Dahl

[August] Derleth tried to prevent any other (non-Derleth-approved) writer from writing Cthulhu Mythos stories.If Lovecraft had wanted bad writers to avoid Cthulhu Mythos stories, he wouldn't have written back to August Derleth. — Kenneth Hite

Writing something new is an effective way to get rid of writer's block. Or you can observe the people around you and fantasize like I do. — B.A. Gabrielle

What an ornament and safeguard is humor! Far better than wit for a poet and writer. It is a genius itself, and so defends from the insanities. — Walter Scott

If you have received a letter inviting you to speak at the dedication of a new cat hospital, and you hate cats, your reply, declining the invitation, does not necessarily have to cover the full range of your emotions. You must make it clear that you will not attend, but you do not have to let fly at the cats. The writer of the letter asked a civil question; attack cats, then, only if you can do so with good humor, good taste, and in such a way that your answer will be courteous as well as responsive. Since you are out of sympathy with cats, you may quite properly give this as a reason for not appearing at the dedicatory ceremonies of a cat hospital. But bear in mind that your opinion of cats was not sought, only your services as a speaker. Try to keep things straight. — William Strunk Jr.

If I could do it all again, I would start three hundred years ago, and write twice as fast. — Peter James West

A writer should not review a book. A reviewer should not write. — Bhaskar Sharma

There is nothing harder to estimate than a writer's time, nothing harder to keep track of. There are moments - moments of sustained creation - when his time is fairly valuable; and there are hours and hours when a writer's time isn't worth the paper he is not writing anything on. — E.B. White

ELEGY, n. A composition in verse, in which, without employing any of the methods of humor, the writer aims to produce in the reader's mind the dampest kind of dejection. — Ambrose Bierce

We often hear that mathematics consists mainly of 'proving theorems.' Is a writer's job mainly that of 'writing sentences? — Gian-Carlo Rota

If a writer writes poems and short stories and novels, but nobody ever reads them, is she really a writer? — Jennifer Weiner

Never let anyone use your toothbrush or your pen. -Author Wllm Worth — Wllm Worth

Krys Lee has written a book of unforgettable stories, each one building on the other to create a complex, moving portrait of contemporary Korea and its diaspora. She guides us surely through the fallout of war, immigration, and financial crisis, always alert to the possibility of tenderness, transcendence, and even humor along the way. Lee is a writer who really understands loneliness, but her voice is so appealing, and her perceptions so wise, that we feel all the less lonely for knowing her characters and experiencing their lives. — Sarah Shun-lien Bynum

I'm a writer, not a DJ. I don't take requests. — Kate LeDonne Black

From my earliest years I had always wanted to be a writer. It was not that I had any particular message for humanity. I am still plugging away and not the ghost of one so far, so it begins to look as though, unless I suddenly hit mid-season form in my eighties, humanity will remain a message short. — P.G. Wodehouse

Although Kurt Vonnegut may not be considered a humor writer, 'Breakfast of Champions' is one of the funniest books I've ever read. — Justin Halpern

And every writer cherishes the dream of setting the young on fire, even if only by a cigarette butt tossed casually over the shoulder, and when we meet young people who say that they were inspired by what we said to rush off and read the books we were talking about, we can congratulate ourselves for all those guilty hours when, the last two left after a long lunch, we went on arguing about everything we knew. — Clive James

W. P. Kinsella, who was born on a farm near Edmunton, Alberta, has earned wide recognition for his wild imagination and rash humor as a writer. — Gerald Vizenor

Mounting anything on a plaque instantly transforms it from trash into an award. For example, a dry disposable pen goes from junk clutter to the first annual writer's award for dry humor. — Jarod Kintz

As an author I'm in my head all day and I worry that I lose touch with reality. But then my dog pees on my shoe and I know I've found it again. — Michelle M. Pillow

Writing is not always a writer's playtime. It's actually a work in progress. Few understand this and mistakenly believe we're wasting time. But it's never a waste of time when doing what you love. — David Lucero

Since I became a knitting humor writer, I seem to be understood a little better - at least for the purposes of social discourse. — Stephanie Pearl-McPhee

Discipline allows magic. To be a writer is to be the very best of assassins. You do not sit down and write every day to force the Muse to show up. You get into the habit of writing every day so that when she shows up, you have the maximum chance of catching her, bashing her on the head, and squeezing every last drop out of that bitch. — Lili St. Crow

There's a lot of "fiddle-faddle" wrapped up in that word "inspiration." It is the last resort of the lazy writer, of the man who would rather sit and dream than be up and doing. If the majority of writers who depend upon fiction for a livelihood were to wait for the spirit of inspiration to move them, the sheriff would happen along and tack a notice on the front door--while the writers were still waiting. — John Milton Edwards

Please welcome Professor Varen Nethers, famous depressed dead poets historian and author of the bestselling books Unlocking your Poe-tential: A Writer's Guide, and Mo Poe Fo Yo: When You Just Can't Get Enough. — Kelly Creagh

I don't even pretend to believe I know everything; I just believe in arguments God told me I had a pretty good chance of winning, while I was traveling through hell. — Shannon L. Alder

There's only one person who needs a glass of water oftener than a small child tucked in for the night, and that's a writer sitting down to write. — Mignon McLaughlin

Why do people always expect authors to answer questions? I am an author because I want to ask questions. If I had answers, I'd be a politician. — Eugene Ionesco

A writer is congenitally unable to tell the truth and that is why we call what he writes fiction. — William Faulkner

I love telling truthful honest stories. I suppose I'd love the opportunity to be a superhero within a realistic dramatic piece. It would have opportunity for humor too of course. And ideally I would be the writer/director? (Though I suppose if I was, it is POSSIBLE I would give myself a meaty but smaller part so I could focus on the latter of my duties ... Maybe). — E.J. Bonilla

If you haven't heard a rumor by noon, make one up. If you're a writer, make sure it's a full page of the book you're currently working on. — Lamont Tanksley

Cervantes is the most important Spanish writer. But he is not the most representative of the Spanish. His irony, his sense of humor - they are too subtle to seem Spanish. — Antonio Munoz Molina

I'm suffering from "Hyper-analytical Social Media Posting Disorder", characterized by a compulsion to edit 5 minutes after posting a comment, augmented by a repeating pattern: (((Tremors))) - fix-it - relief!!!

Will this comment survive? — Andrew Neff

A liar with a pen is a writer — Genesis Quihuis

You sure about this writer thing son? — Christopher Moore

On Twitter at last, and can't think of a thing to say. Some writer I turned out to be. — Stephen King

If a writer rewrites an essay, people who read the new version are unlikely to complain that their thoughts have been broken by some newly introduced incompatibility. — Paul Graham

Here are the two states in which you may exist: person who writes, or person who does not. If you write: you are a writer. If you do not write: you are not. Aspiring is a meaningless null state that romanticizes Not Writing. It's as ludicrous as saying, "I aspire to pick up that piece of paper that fell on the floor." Either pick it up or don't. I don't want to hear about how your diaper's full. Take it off or stop talking about it. — Chuck Wendig

A writer's voice is not character alone, it is not style alone; it is far more. A writer's voice line the stroke of an artist's brush- is the thumbprint of her whole person- her idea, wit, humor, passions, rhythms. — Patricia Lee Gauch

If I can't be remembered as one of the greatest authors, why not be remembered as the sexiest writer... — Hans Lindor

Q: Best part about being a musical theatre book writer?
A: Explaining what that is. — Christy Hall

Only a person with the true heart of a dictionary-writer would be lying in bed, three days after being stabbed in the gut, worrying about his P's. — Kristin Cashore

I escape disaster by writing a poem with a joke in it:
The past, present, and future walk into a bar - it was tense. — Kelli Russell Agodon

Thomas' work. Abigail Thomas is one of our wisest, most beautiful writers; a writer whose stories and memoirs I have loved for a long time. She has an equally great eye, and heart, for what is true, and for what holds meaning and hope in our lives. Couple this with a brilliant, dark sense of humor, and you will see why every writer I know waits for each new book. Thomas has written — Anonymous

F. Scott Fitzgerald believed inserting exclamation points was the literary equivalent of an author laughing at his own jokes, but that's not the case in the modern age; now, the exclamation point signifies creative confusion. All it illustrates is that even the writer can't tell if what they're creating is supposed to be meaningful, frivolous, or cruel. It's an attempt to insert humor where none exists, on the off chance that a potential reader will only be pleased if they suspect they're being entertained. Of course, the reader isn't really sure, either. They just want to know when they're supposed to pretend to be amused. — Chuck Klosterman

(On her son) I've met writer's block. He is short, diapered and keeps unplugging my laptop. Good news: he can be conquered with a bottle and a nap. — Cyrese Covelli

I'm a writer. I write stuff. — Kevin J.J. Carpenter

I'm a busy author with a sense of Humor, so hang, it's a bumpy ride"! — Marilyn Fowler

My imagination was running amok again. Twice in one night. This never happens when I'm sitting in front of a typewriter. — Gary Reilly