Writer Inspiration Quotes & Sayings

Do you think you're not 'ready' to start that big story idea/project you've been thinking about forever?

Jump in. Write anyway. The only way to make the impossible a reality is to take a leap of faith. — M. Kirin

Become my muse. And let me paint you with my words... — Avijeet Das

If you can't write, read.
If you can't read, walk.
Or walk and read, then write. — Joyce Rachelle

There are ... otherwise quite decent people who are so dull of nature that they believe that they must attribute the swift flight of fancy to some illness of the psyche, and thus it happens that this or that writer is said to create not other than while imbibing intoxicating drink or that his fantasies are the result of overexcited nerves and resulting fever. But who can fail to know that, while a state of psychical excitement caused by the one or other stimulant may indeed generate some lucky and brilliant ideas, it can never produce a well-founded, substantial work of art that requires the utmost presence of mind. — E.T.A. Hoffmann

The only way to overcome fear and doubt is to go against them. — M. Kirin

Tolkien was such a brilliant writer in so many ways. He was truly an inspiration. Many people don't realize just how much he researched and how much he based his stories and characters on mythology of various types. He was very deep and in many ways a genius. — Raymond Buckland

Today is the day that you create worlds, you change lives, you make a something, a someone, out of nothing.
Today is the day you become a writer. — Alessandra Torre

Whether you're a writer of stories or a writer of patents, you're an inventor. — Linda A. Tancs

When I told my teachers I wanted to be a writer, alot of them encouraged me to lower my expectations and to be more realistic. So I rode away on my magical, winged horse, spraying faerie dust behind me, and laughing manically as I went. — M.E. Vaughan

As a writer, I see the saga of your life in a single glimpse. It may be inaccurate, but my version doesn't lack for creativity. — Richelle E. Goodrich

Chaos is nothing more than beauty about to dance. — A.D. Posey

My inspiration for writing is all the wonderful books that I read as a child and that I still read. I think that for those of us who write, when we find a wonderful book written by someone else, we don't really get jealous, we get inspired, and that's kind of the mark of what a good writer is. — Patricia MacLachlan

The difference between a fairly interesting writer and a fascinating writer is that the fascinating writer has a better nose for what genuinely excites him, he is hotter on the trail, he has a better instinct for what is truly alive in him. The worse writer may seem to be more sensible in many ways, but he is less sensible in this vital matter: he cannot distinguish what is full of life from what is only half full or empty of it. And so his writing is less alive, and as a writer he is less alive, and in writing, as in everything else, nothing matters but life. — Ted Hughes

Writing heals my heart like no pill ever could. — Rob Bignell, Editor

The hours spent forming a written work can make one obsessive, distracted, compulsive, and neurotic even, especially when it comes to those rare, precious occasions of streaming pure inspiration. To have a muse moment interrupted - to watch her scuttle back into hiding with unshared insight remaining on the tip of her tongue - is a wicked irritation. When a writer's eyes glaze over, when she stares off at nothing or appears to be memorizing the lines on a blank page, when she falls asleep at the desk ... tiptoe softly. For a writer's greatest desire is to receive inspiration; her greatest nightmare, to have tossed to the wind what could've been captured in words. — Richelle E. Goodrich

We as authors sign a pact with our readers; they'll go on reading because they trust us to play fair with them and deliver what we've promised. — Pamela Glass Kelly

We write because the blank piece of paper and the pen are there. We write because this is our addiction and we are proud of it. Our habit, our drug, our crutch. Whatever you wish to call it. We write because since an early age we felt it deep in our souls and in our bones. The poem must be written, the story must be told and the new myths and Gods are waiting for you to bring them forth from out of the darkness and to bring them into the light of being. You are a creator, so create. You are the writer. So write. — R.M. Engelhardt

I'm not a writer where I feel particularly blessed by great inspiration every day. I don't. I have to work really hard at it to try and say the things I'm concerned with. — P.J. Harvey

Grub Street turns out good things almost as often as Parnassus. For if a writer is hard up enough, if he's far down enough (down where I have been and am rising from, I am really saying), he can't afford self-doubt and he can't let other people's opinions, even a father's, keep him from writing. — Wallace Stegner

Let your story grow. Let it surprise you, and it will certainly surprise your readers. — M. Kirin

It's called "being an artist" for a reason; it's something YOU ARE. It's how you live. It's WHO you are. How you spend your life and what you leave behind. — Charlotte Eriksson

Stop beating yourself up over all the days you didn't work on your story. Focus on what you can do today.

Sit down, and write. — M. Kirin

If we don't value the people who inspire us (and money is one mark of that) then what kind of culture are we building? — Sara Sheridan

Inspiration gives you energy, courage puts you in action. — Amit Kalantri

What is hell to a writer? Hell is being too busy to find the time to write or being unable to find the inspiration. Hell is suddenly finding the words but being away from your notebook or typewriter. Hell is when the verses slip away through your fingers and they never return again. — R.M. Engelhardt

She looked at the empty page, which remained blank, apart from the small wet dots from her tears, for hours. Her mind was a turmoil of sadness, rage, fear and all those emotions that gave her inspiration. However her heart lacked the will as the empty words enclosed her soul pulling it down towards the frenzied ravenous imps that stalked hells pantry.... — Virginia Alison

Frank Halford was a master at the school and remembers Adams as "very tall even then, and popular. He wrote an end-of-term play when Doctor Who had just started on television. He called it 'Doctor Which.' " Many years later, Adams did write scripts for Doctor Who. He describes Halford as an inspirational teacher who is still a support. "He once gave me ten out of ten for a story, which was the only time he did throughout his long school career. And even now, when I have a dark night of the soul as a writer and think that I can't do this anymore, the thing that I reach for is not the fact that I have had best-sellers or huge advances. It is the fact that Frank Halford once gave me ten out of ten, and at some fundamental level I must be able to do it. — Douglas Adams

A writer's inspiration is not just to create. He must eat three times a day. — Pierre Beaumarchais

And life is a good thing for a writer. It's where we get our raw material, for a start. We quite like to stop and watch it. — Neil Gaiman

A writer is a person for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people. — Leonard Bernstein

At the outset, my notion of being a writer was that you would have moments of inspiration and moments of frustration, when you'd crumple up your pages and toss them away. On one side, the dustbin would fill up, and on the other side, pages would rise into a novel. — Tom Rachman

Let you light shine from the inside out. — Juliet M. Sampson

Learn the writer's craft, write regularly, grow to love the practice for its own sake-and inspiration will either come on a particular day or it won't, but you'll have prepared the way for it. — Dennis Palumbo

A deadline gets a writer's work done done better and faster than any inspiration, if only because inspirations don't always come, but the deadline is always there. — A.A. Patawaran

Writer's block is like a full moon behind the rain clouds. — Archana Kapoor Nagpal

The urge to create a fictional narrative is a mysterious one, and when an idea comes, the writer's sense of what a story wants to be is only vaguely visible through the penumbra of inspiration. — Adam Johnson

Writing is more than just a method to tell stories. It's a way to find healing, and to healing others. — M. Kirin

Folding the laundry, completing another project at work, or watching television for the next hour doesn't build your writing muscles. It only leaves them flabby. — Rob Bignell, Editor

Make today the day you begin that awesome idea you have had for years. Now go, write this book, and remember that today is an important day in history. — M. Kirin

I have learned, as has many another better writer, to summon inspiration to my call as soon as I begin my day's stint, and not to hang around waiting for it. Inspiration is merely a pretty phrase for the zest to work. And it can be cultivated by anyone who has the patience to try. Inspiration that will not come at its possessor's summons is like a dog that cannot be trained to obey. The sooner both are gotten rid of, the better. — Albert Payson Terhune

Inspiration is just one requirement for being a writer. Another is keeping regular working hours. — Zelda Popkin

One of my favorite writers is short story writer/essayist Jorge Luis Borges, who was blind. I'm not claiming to be anything remotely resembling a talent of Borges' caliber, but he is an inspiration and a proof that one can be a meaningful and successful writer while blind. — Larry Howes

In the industry, trying out new genres is not always encouraged but what I've discovered is that as a writer, a jaunt outside my comfort zone generally brings new skills to the main body of my work. — Sara Sheridan

We want books that make our hearts beat harder... that relieve us of the agonizing burden of everyday life — Ben Oliveira

If I'm not a writer, who am I? — Jacquelyn Middleton

Originality is not writing the story that has never been told, but writing the stories only you can tell. — M. Kirin

Don't wait. Writers are the only artists I know of who expect to get somewhere by waiting. Everyone knows you have to dance to be a dancer, you have to sing to be a singer, you have to act to be an actor, but far too many people seem to believe that you. don't have to write to be a writer. So, instead of writing, they wait. Isaac Asimov said it beautifully in just six words: "It's the writing that teaches you." Writing is what teaches you. Writing is what leads to "inspiration." Writing is what generates ideas. Nothing else-and nothing less. Don't meditate, don't do yoga, don't do drugs. Just write. — Daniel Quinn

I am a writer because I write, an author because I create, a poet because the words are in my soul. — Wesley D. Gray

The orator yields to the inspiration of a transient occasion, and speaks to the mob, before him, to those who can hear him; but the writer, whose more equable life is his crowd which inspire the orator, speaks to the intellect and heart of mankind, to all in any age who can understand him. — Henry David Thoreau

A writer will divine a metaphor from a pattern on a dress, or a gesture, because sunsets have been done before. — Brandi L. Bates

If words come alive on the page, the writer succeeds in connecting to the reader. — Aman Jassal

In such a person, sadness breeds purpose; finding inspiration in the darkness and often times, I believe, they will impress a hell onto their own lives in order to re-create it, that others might suffer the experience from the comfort of their armchairs. - Quote from Her Past's Present. — Michael Poeltl

[...] She knew it a book it was not just a book. Everything had a meaning. There was an invisible web that connected the words. It was like magic — Ben Oliveira

Who Am I?
I'm a creator, a visionary, a poet. I approach the world with the eyes of an artist, the ears of a musician, and the soul of a writer. I see rainbows where others see only rain, and possibilities when others see only problems. I love spring flowers, summer's heat on my body, and the beauty of the dying leaves in the fall. Classical music, art museums, and ballet are sources of inspiration, as well as blues music and dim cafes. I love to write; words flow easily from my fingertips, and my heart beats rapidly with excitement as an idea becomes a reality on the paper in front of me. I smile often, laugh easily, and I weep at pain and cruelty. I'm a learner and a seeker of knowledge, and I try to take my readers along on my journey. I am passionate about what I do. I learned to dream through reading, learned to create dreams through writing, and learned to develop dreamers through teaching. I shall always be a dreamer. Come dream with me. — Sharon M. Draper

I will not stop singing
the Muses who set me dancing. — Anne Carson

I always begin with a source of inspiration that comes from nature. The story comes from my research, volunteering, and meeting the people involved in that story world. I am an intuitive writer and an image, sound, experience can all inspire a scene or a plot twist! — Mary Alice Monroe

Yesterday is gone, and tomorrow is beyond our reach. The best time to write is now, in the present. — M. Kirin

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

A man is a fool not to put everything he has, at any given moment, into what he is creating. You're there now doing the thing on paper. You're not killing the goose, you're just producing an egg. So I don't worry about inspiration, or anything like that. It's a matter of just sitting down and working. I have never had the problem of a writing block. I've heard about it. I've felt reluctant to write on some days, for whole weeks, or sometimes even longer. I'd much rather go fishing, for example, or go sharpen pencils, or go swimming, or what not. But, later, coming back and reading what I have produced, I am unable to detect the difference between what came easily and when I had to sit down and say, "Well, now it's writing time and now I'll write." There's no difference on paper between the two. — Frank Herbert

My favorite thing is being able to follow my inspiration, and the freedom of being a writer is hard to beat. — Mike White

I've long considered becoming a writer to be the death of nightmares. For me at least, since I started writing I hadn't had any. Something really terrible or awful happens in a dream and you wake up and think, awesome, and reach for a pen and paper. — Logan Kain

I can't explain inspiration. A writer is either compelled to write or not. And if I waited for inspiration I wouldn't really be a writer. — Toni Morrison

I think of myself as a bad writer with big ideas, but I'd rather be that than a big writer with bad ideas. — Michael Moorcock

As for work, without it, without painstaking work, any writer or artist definitely remains a dilettante; there's no point in waiting for so-called blissful moments, for inspiration; if it comes, so much the better
but you keep working anyway. — Ivan Turgenev

A writer will always be a writer. It's not a choice, it's a destiny. — Stephanie Lennox

Writers don't forget the past; they turn it into raw material. — Joyce Rachelle

People make interesting assumptions about the profession. The writer is a mysterious figure, wandering lonely as a cloud, fired by inspiration, or perhaps a cocktail or two. — Sara Sheridan

It is the writer who might catch the imagination of young people, and plant a seed that will flower and come to fruition. — Isaac Asimov

A good writer reveals beauty in the mundane and truth in tragedy. Words are a tool; a currency of the mind, and the best writers weave passages into our hearts that our bones remember. — Maria Reeves

I write because if I don't let it out of my system, I will die with guilt. — Shahla Khan

The writer's only responsibility is to his art. He will be completely ruthless if he is a good one. He has a dream. It anguishes him so much he must get rid of it. He has no peace until then. Everything goes by the board: honor, pride, decency, security, happiness, all, to get the book written. If a writer has to rob his mother, he will not hesitate; the 'Ode on a Grecian Urn' is worth any number of old ladies. — William Faulkner

Each time I write, I reaffirm my soul. — Rob Bignell, Editor

All you have to do is put one word after another, and remember how great it feels to be a writer. — Stephanie Lennox

We choose our favourite author as we do our friend, from a conformity of humour and disposition. Mirth or passion, sentiment or reflection; whichever of these most predominates in our temper, it gives us a peculiar sympathy with the writer who resembles us. — David Hume

A fiery spirit bursts from your soul. — A.D. Posey

When I'm not writing, I'm thinking about writing. Filling pages and people with inspiration. When my thoughts don't want to rest on a page, we argue. We argue that one merely is ready just too comfortable playing in The Nile [denial] river. So we compromise. We grow,
water metaphors
and plant simile trees
of golden-almond
manifested love dreams.
Then at that moment, we forgot what we were arguing about.
Beauty can do that for you.
That's the beauty of writing. — Antonia Perdu

I think every fiction writer, to a certain extent, is a schizophrenic and able to have two or three or five voices in his or her body. We seek, through our profession, to get those voices onto paper. — Ridley Pearson

The writer cannot abandon himself simply to inspiration, and feign innocence vis a vis language, because language is never innocent. — Juan Goytisolo

Every writer has their rituals. For me, it's morning walks along the beach. And then, in my study I have a huge painting of the Black Madonna hung over my desk, and quite a few pictures of Mary around me for inspiration. — Sue Monk Kidd

The term - 'Fairy-Tales' is so ironical in itself, when I sometimes sit to write love stories with a happy ending, it usually drags me into a dilemma whether, I should even begin with a love story at first place or not? Because honestly, I haven't seen many of them reaching climax, most of them just die out in the mid. Then comes the concept of fairy tales or what we say 'fiction', where nothing is impossible!
But over time, if I've realized something, it is that there's no such term called fiction when it comes to reality! Its harsh, in-your-face-sarcastic, ironical and highly irrational. You can't expect what's coming up next, and how it's going to blow you. In the real life, the entire meaning of fiction ceases to exist. Conclusively, we writers, deal with harsh reality and write lively fictions, this job in itself is so ironical but, that's life ... — Mehek Bassi

I guess like any writer or screenwriter I'm alone in my own world so much of the time that I'm often trying to force myself out of my world. Into more risk. A less controlled kind of inspiration. I'm so keenly aware of how easy it's getting to not leave the house, with Amazon, especially. — Miranda July

All great stories began as shitty first drafts.
There are no exceptions to this. — M. Kirin

Any writer takes inspiration from what they read and watch, and over their career works on forming their own voice. I think it was probably Stephen King who made me want to become a writer. — Tim Lebbon

I couldn't believe a man had written this! Ryker had a way with words and the way with words and the way my emotions got twisted in them was a gift only a true writer possessed. — Sarah Brocious

If you want to be a professional writer then you need to write consistently. Inspiration strikes about once every blue moon which, for me, is once every two and a half to three months, which is when I'll get really and truly inspired about something. — Christopher Paolini

If you only had a year left to live, what book would you write?

Now, write that book. — M. Kirin

Love is the only energy I've ever used as a writer. I've never written out of anger, although anger has informed love. — Athol Fugard

A writer of any merit does not worry about being accepted everywhere. He must write to inspire, to change for the better or to challenge the status quo! — Avijeet Das

I always say three things make a writer: inspiration, obviously; perspiration, doing the work. But the third is desperation. I'm not really fit for anything else, or to have a real job. That fear drives me. The pressure has always been self inflicted. — Harlan Coben

Even though I'm an ordinary writer, I too, have trouble when it come to writing along the way. But at least I manage to self-publish my book with no errors (hopefully). Just check out Agatha Christie, an author who also has a learning disability. She managed to be succesful. And I hope that I would be successful as her and Abishek Bachan. — Simi Sunny

Don't ever let yourself surrender to writer's block. — Julie Wenzel

When Stephen King elaborated on his inspirations for his novel "Carrie" he draws from a time when he was a young man, and describes his impression when he came upon a statue of Christ on the cross, hanging there in misery, and he thought "If THAT guy ever came back, he probably wouldn't be in a saving mood." — Stephen King

The spirit of an artist's gifts can wake our own. — Lewis Hyde "The Gift"

Do all the work while you still have strength. — Lailah Gifty Akita

I'll admit that writing doesn't always come, but I'm totally against walking around looking at the sky when you're experiencing a block, waiting for inspiration to strike you. Tchaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakov didn't like each other and agreed on very few things, but they were of one opinion on this: you had to write constantly. If you can't write a major work, write minor trifles. If you can't write at all, orchestrate something. — Dmitri Shostakovich

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

You think you have no 'talent'? Write anyway. lots of people with 'talent' don't actually act on it. As long as you write, you will learn, you will improve, and you will be better than anyone claiming to have 'talent. — M. Kirin

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

Writing is a sickness only cured by writing. — Niall Williams

Baseball was an art, but to excel at it you had to become a machine. It didn't matter how beautifully you performed _sometimes_, what you did on your best day, how many spectacular plays you made. You weren't a painter or a writer
you didn't work in private and discard your mistakes, and it wasn't just your masterpieces that counted. What mattered, as for any machine, was repeatability. Moments of inspiration were nothing compared to elimination of error. The scouts cared little for Henry's superhuman grace; insofar as they cared they were suckered-in aesthetes and shitty scouts. Can you perform on demand, like a car, a furnace, a gun? Can you make that throw one hundred times out of a hundred? If it can't be a hundred, it had better be ninety-nine. — Chad Harbach