Writers Humor Quotes & Sayings

So what? All writers are lunatics! — Cornelia Funke

{Summertime she speaks of winter, she eats ham, but speaks of beef, got a good man but, flirts with another. She might as well go to hell, cause she ain't gonna be happy in heaven either!} — Nancy B. Brewer

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

I mean. You put puppies in a store front, I will stop and giddily stare. Every. Single. Time. — Christy Hall

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

What do writers look like? — Graham Spaid

I soon forgot about my bedraggled appearance. Until, that is, an old man shuffled in and propped himself, hunched and wheezing, over the check-in desk. Karen asked him if he needed assistance.
"No," he grunted sucking on his teeth, "your wet-T-shirt librarian with the punk rock hair is helping me out just fine. — Suzanne Kelman

You know the look: genius gone to pot, and ready to join the Communist Party — William, Saroyan

The problem with taxation is that authors can't write off whiskey as a business expense. — Bryan Way

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

All writers are insane! — Cornelia Funke

Writers are Igniters! — Cammy Walters

You know you're officially an adult when you finally understand WHY Miss Hannigan was drinking bath water. — Christy Hall

What's my favorite part that I've written? That's like asking me to choose which of my kids is least ugly! — Matthew Catania

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

When I die I hope it may be said:
'Her suffering was black, but her books were read'. — Shannon L. Alder

Writers write, everyone else just talks about writing. — Various

Human females, they're kind of crazy during this time aren't they?
If you chose to believe the stories written by male writers.
They heard a bang and thump from the kitchen. Followed by Meg yelling at something.
That many males can't be wrong. — Anne Bishop

There are many premium writers, yes? Tolstoy, yes? He wrote War, and also Peace, which are both premium books. — Jonathan Safran Foer

There are two MFA programs here at the University of Texas, and I read on the jury of both of them. And it's amazing to me how many really talented young writers seem to fear humor. — Elizabeth McCracken

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

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

Writing a book with completely fictitious characters is like running a democracy, centered around a capital state. You constantly live with the fear & suspicion that one of the characters will start an uncontrollable rebellion. — Shomprakash Sinha Roy

Horror. I can't manage it. I become
well
horrified. Self-help books have a similar effect.
When asked, "Any literary genre you simply can't be bothered with?" - (By the Book: Writers on Literature and the Literary Life from the NYT Book Review, by Pamela Paul) — Emma Thompson

[Attending the Sun Dance] There was a smattering of tourists, both serious and recreational. Professors of anthropology and ethnology. Writers of fact and other fiction. A family from Wisconsin pausing on their long, sacred pilgrimage to The Land of Disney. — James D. Doss

Writers are the most pathetic souls when it comes to expressing their personal feelings. Their personalities are as complex as the characters they have weaved. And in a curious way, without them really knowing it, writers are the sum total of the characters they created in their heads or in their writings. Yes, My Dear Tania; writers are capable of reflecting their characters, even though most of them are determined to be just like your ordinary guy next door. — Janvier Chouteu-Chando

She meant to write: "Is Christy here yet?"
Auto Correct turned it into: "Is crazy here yet?"
For once Auto Correct got it right. — Christy Hall

Everywhere I go I'm asked if I think the university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them. There's many a best-seller that could have been prevented by a good teacher. — Flannery O'Connor

Anytime there's a bad female stand-up somewhere, some dickhead Interblogger will deduce that "women aren't funny." Using that same math, I can state: Male comedy writers piss in cups. — Tina Fey

Writing isn't necessarily a gift it is a passion. You can write a one page masterpiece to 99 pages of crap. What keeps you coming back is that Zen moment when you enlightened your own self with a few cleverly arranged words and saved yourself a $200 trip to the shrink, by simply buying a #2 pencil. — Shannon L. Alder

If you haven't cried at least once while writing a chapter of your inspirational book, then you have to ask yourself if your're writing fiction. — Shannon L. Alder

Wait, that's your idea? That's your expert advice? You're going to tell these novelists to just keep going? You're going to tell these honest, earnest writers: You gotta have faith? Those are George Michael lyrics, asshole. If they wanted that pep talk, they could just hang out inside a mall elevator. — Karen Russell

I am Orafoura, but you can call me Jarod Kintz. I'm fairly proud to proclaim that Dora J. Arod has me on her short list of "World's worst writers." The list couldn't get any shorter, because I'm the only name on it. I should tell her to stop calling it a list, and change the title to "World's worst writer." If you're wondering why I rate all my work one star, it's because the rating system doesn't have a zero star option, or better yet, go into negative numbers. — Orafoura

Having writers block sucks more than my actual writing. And my writing would be astonishing if I could write how I feel. — Ally Spina

Walter Scott has no business to write novels, especially good ones. - It is not fair. - He has fame and profit enough as a poet, and should not be taking the bread out of other people's mouths. - I do not like him, and do not mean to like Waverley if I can help it - but fear I must. — Jane Austen

One of the things that would be great is to some day have so many women comedy writers that we wouldn't say there's just one type of female humor. There's lots. — Mallory Ortberg

Pen-bereavement is a serious matter. — Anne Fadiman

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

I surround myself with books when I write, thus surrounding myself with writers... only they don't critique me and then get up for coffee. — Ryan Lilly

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

Writers don't kill characters. Characters kill characters. — MariaLisa DeMora

Humor writers:
1) Write
2) Laugh
3) Laugh when they write
4) Write when they laugh — Ann K. Howley

Writers don't make any money at all. We make about a dollar. It is terrible. But then again we don't work either. We sit around in our underwear until noon then go downstairs and make coffee, fry some eggs, read the paper, read part of a book, smell the book, wonder if perhaps we ourselves should work on our book, smell the book again, throw the book across the room because we are quite jealous that any other person wrote a book, feel terribly guilty about throwing the schmuck's book across the room because we secretly wonder if God in heaven noticed our evil jealousy, or worse, our laziness. We then lie across the couch facedown and mumble to God to forgive us because we are secretly afraid He is going to dry up all our words because we envied another man's stupid words. And for this, as I said, we are paid a dollar. We are worth so much more. — Donald Miller

I don't know why anyone would be scared of a homeless person. The truly scary people are all the murder mystery writers. They spend all day thinking of the perfect plot on how to kill someone and get away with it. — Shannon L. Alder

I'm a writer. I'm a Christian. I like sex. But I haven't had it. I believe in waiting until marriage. But that doesn't mean I want my characters to. — Michelle N. Onuorah

Male writers who never find the stabilizing force of an understanding woman in their lives usually end up as the jaded figures of their days, the types who give much artistic expression to the world, but who are lonely in their overcrowded worlds of love. — Janvier Chouteu-Chando

I have high hopes for the book and have already made a down payment on a Ferrari. Well, it's actually a small metal model of a Ferrari, kind of like a Dinky Toy, but a little bit bigger. — Paul Benedetti

In Ruth's view, they looked 'like a couple' because they seemed to possess some terrible secret between them - they appeared stricken with remorse when they saw her. Only a novelist could ever imagine such nonsense. (In part, it was because of her perverse ability to imagine anything that in this instance Ruth failed to imagine the obvious) — John Irving

[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

[When asked for her advice to aspiring writers] Run! Just kidding. Sort of. Really, I think the best advice I can give is to wait for the book that compels you to write it-- the one that you eat, sleep, and breathe.

If you try to force yourself to create an epic story, you will feel the ensuing drudgery quite acutely-- and worse, your readers will feel it too.

Conversely, if you wait for the book that won't leave you alone until you finish it, your readers will feel that energy and it will make it difficult for them to put the book down until they have finished it! — Kealohilani

What the semicolon's anxious supporters fret about is the tendency of contemporary writers to use a dash instead of a semicolon and thus precipitate the end of the world. Are they being alarmist? — Lynne Truss

You've never heard of the Trickster King?" Puck asked, shocked.
The girls shook their heads.
"The Prince of Fairies? Robin Goodfellow? The Imp?"
"Do you work for Santa?" Daphne asked.
"I'm a fairy, not an elf!" Puck roared. "You really don't know who I am! Doesn't anyone read the classics anymore? Dozens of writers have warned about me. I'm in the most famous of all of William Shakespeare's plays."
"I don't remember any Puck in Romeo and Juliet," Sabrina muttered, feeling a little amused at how the boy was reacting to his non-celebrity.
"Besides Romeo and Juliet!" Puck shouted. "I'm the star of a Midsummer Night's Dream!"
"Congratulation," Sabrina said flatly. "Never read it. — Michael Buckley

The humor is essentially dark for a cartoon and sophisticated. But at the same time, being a cartoon gives the writers more freedom than in a normal sitcom. It always pushes the line that, despite human failings, the Simpsons are really decent people. — Dan Castellaneta

Special Super Bowl Wisdom of the Ages: "Marshawn Lynch" Not really shy. Still extremely embarrassed he believed you can't be charged for beating up on large groups of people-as long as you are carrying a football. — Matthew D. Heines

Lunatics are writers whose works write them, Bat." "Not all lunatics are writers, Mrs. Rey-believe me." "But most writers are lunatics, Bat-believe me. The human world is made up of stories, not people. — David Mitchell

Writers understand the world better, but they lack the strength to change it. Perhaps that is so because they understand their limitations more than others. — Janvier Chouteu-Chando

Thunderstorms were common in Sarantium on midsummer nights, sufficiently so to make plausible the oft-repeated tale that the Emperor Apius passed to the god in the midst of a towering storm, with lightning flashing and rolls of thunder besieging the Holy City. Even Pertennius of Eubulus, writing only twenty years after, told the story this way, adding a statue of the Emperor toppling before the bronze gates to the Imperial Precinct and an oak tree split asunder just outside the landward walls. Writers of history often seek the dramatic over the truth. It is a failing of the profession. — Guy Gavriel Kay

As a footnote to the above, I would like to say that I am getting very tired of literary authorities, on both the stage and the screen, who advise young writers to deal only with those subjects that happen to be familiar to them personally. It is quite true that this theory probably produced "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn," but the chances are it would have ruled out "Hamlet. — Wolcott Gibbs

If I were to be honest, I'm probably fifty percent bagel. Okay, fine, sixty percent. — Christy Hall

Reading the book now means that one can, if one wants, play Fantasy Literature
match writers off against each other and see who won over the long haul. Faulkner or Henry Green? I reckon the surprise champ was P.G. Wodehouse, as elegant and resourceful a prose stylist as anyone held up for our inspection here ... he has turned out to be as enduring as anyone apart from Orwell. Jokes, you see. People do like jokes.
(Hornby's thoughts after reading "Enemies of Promise" by Cyril Connolly) — Nick Hornby

I sometimes think if I did not write I would be a madwoman. Now I am a sane woman with a lot of mad pages. — Kendall Hailey

Writers were a strange sort; I knew that much from the newspapers. — Chris Priestley

Writers don't get mad they get even in their novels. — Candace C. Bowen

A novelist can't be without a kimono and pen!(Shigure) — Natsuki Takaya

Perhaps if you were to refrain from deploying the phrase 'ignorant
buffoon' with a liberality most writers reserve for 'it' and 'the,'
you would find a readier audience. — Vinnie Tesla

LEARN FROM THE MASTERS:
Mark Twain once said, "Show, don't tell." This is an incredibly important lesson for writers to remember; never get such a giant head that you feel entitled to throw around obscure phrases like "Show, don't tell." Thanks for nothing, Mr. Cryptic. — Colin Nissan

Thought for the day: Twitter ... 140 character limit ... must be a great tool for fortune cookie writers ... — E.A. Bucchianeri

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

The nation that complacently and fearfully allows its artists and writers to become suspected rather than respected is no longer regarded as a nation possessed with humor or depth. — James Thurber

Well you can't believe everything you read. After all, by definition, fiction writers lie for a living. — Janette Rallison

... The Book is more important than your plans for it. You have to go with what works for The Book ~ if your ideas appear hollow or forced when they are put on paper, chop them, erase them, pulverise them and start again. Don't whine when things are not going your way, because they are going the right way for The Book, which is more important. The show must go on, and so must The Book. — E.A. Bucchianeri

The face that greeted me, however, was far from welcoming, it was a miniature stick insect of a woman with wiry white hair and enormous glasses that emphasized her heavily wrinkled face. She blinked twice and looked me up and down. By the look on her face, she wasn't that impressed with what she saw. "Who is it, Ethel?"
She responded, "It's some homeless woman. She looks like she needs money and a good wash."
And I thought I'd already reached the lowest point of my day. — Suzanne Kelman

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

Once, if you told people you were self-published, they'd look at you like you were a smelly old jobless hobo just come off a dusty boxcar with soupcan shoes and a hat made from a coyote skull. — Chuck Wendig

Don't listen to writers. They're messed up - that's why they're writers! — Chocolate Waters

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

Feature-length film comedy is harder to pull off than the episodic sitcom - it doesn't have the same factory machinery up and running, teams of writers putting familiar characters through permutations - but that doesn't explain the widening quality gap that makes movie humor look like a genetic defective. — James Wolcott

It's been my experience that most writers don't talk about their craft
they just do it — Alfred Lansing

Writers are the most tormented of all the different categories of artists that are out there in the world. — Janvier Chouteu-Chando

You deserve good sperm. You've waited a long time. — Buffy Andrews

All writers should be put in a box and thrown in the sea. — Gordon B. Hinckley

I suppose half the time Shakespeare just shoved down anything that came into his head. — P.G. Wodehouse

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

I have always been a huge admirer of my own work. I'm one of the funniest and most entertaining writers I know. — Mel Brooks

I don't ask writers about their work habits. I really don't care. Joyce Carol Oates says somewhere that when writers ask each other what time they start working and when they finish and how much time they take for lunch, they're actually trying to find out, "Is he as crazy as I am?" I don't need that question answered. — Philip Roth

Jack had wondered how geometers could be so inventive as to produce so many types and families of curves. Later he had come to perceive that of curves there was no end, and the true miracle was that poets, or writers, or whoever it was that was in charge of devising new words, could keep pace with those hectic geometers, and slap names on all the whorls and snarls in the pages of the Doctor's geometry-books. — Neal Stephenson

Was Charles I too stubborn to listen to reason? Could Civil War have been averted if the king had been more willing to negotiate? His great enemy Cromwell always maintained that the king had been swayed at the last moment by his queen, the beautiful Henrietta Maria. We can believe Cromwell's claim that the queen told her husband to be firm. But the wicked, spiteful, altogether irresistable quote often attributed to her by Puritan writers of the time is almost certainly false.
Oh my love, if you cannot remain firm in the bedchamber, at least try to remain firm with your subjects! — Antonia Fraser

Normally writers do not talk much,because they are saving their conversations for the readers of their book-
those invisible listeners with whom we wish to strike a sympathetic chord. — Ruskin Bond

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

Artists are dishonest creatures really. They foist their version of reality upon us while making it all up. Writers, painters, musicians, auteurs - they're all the same. — Tom Gething From "Sabotage"

That friend of hers has got to go, though. You're lucky you got stuck with that Dexter guy instead of her.'

'Yeah, but that Dexter couldn't shut his piehole either,' Marlon says. 'I mean, Christ. Artists and writers - let them kill each other off in cage matches; let God sort 'em out. — Dexter Palmer

Like so many writers - I need to keep my butt in the chair. — Tina Gayle

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

It seems we would rather have a past filled with great scientists than just great artists and writers who could dream up these wonderful and awe-inspiring creations. It's a strange irony: we're spending our time trying to find the truth in our past, but creating myths of ourselves in the present. — Aditya Iyengar

It's funny. People often compare me to other humor essayists. They're usually quite nice comparisons; I will accept those gladly. But I am always sort of appalled at the idea of being lumped with other, more chick-y female writers. And the truth is probably that neither comparison is accurate. — Sloane Crosley

Some people desire to be famous. I probably wouldn't be very good at it. — Sarah Warman

Don't live with writers. Writers are bastards. — Warren Ellis

As writers, we're always trying to connect with the audience on a visceral level. We usually do that through drama, through emotion or through humor. — Rockne S. O'Bannon