Writing Lesson Quotes & Sayings

The final lesson a writer learns is that everything can nourish the writer. The dictionary, a new word, a voyage, an encounter, a talk on the street, a book, a phrase learned. — Anais Nin

Without living, how can you know? Without knowing, how can you speak? — J.E. Seanachai

If I ever teach writing again, I'd say the first lesson is to listen. — Horton Foote

Running a close second [as a writing lesson] was the realization that stopping a piece of work just because it's hard, either emotionally or imaginatively, is a bad idea. Sometimes you have to go on when you don't feel like it, and sometimes you're doing good work when it feels like all you're managing is to shovel shit from a sitting position. — Stephen King

What I had to face, the very bitter lesson that everyone who wants to write has got to learn, was that a thing may in itself be the finest piece of writing one has ever done, and yet have absolutely no place in the manuscript one hopes to publish. — Thomas Wolfe

If You Can Stand It, Play the Long Game ...
What I mean here is that you have to remain committed to the ultimate goal, which isn't to win the immediate approval of the online world, or dazzle a workshop, but to improve your storytelling day by day.
Finding the right balance of feedback - encouragement versus vigorous criticism - will help immeasurably.
But your own commitment has to be to the process of improvement, not to the anticipated reward.
If it's any consolation, I'm still working on this final lesson. — Steve Almond

You should spend more time reading the Good Book and less reading all those novels. What are you going to tell the Lord on Judgement Day when He asks you why you didn't read your bible? Hmm?
I will tell Him that His press agents could have done with a writing lesson or two, I said. To myself. — Jennifer Donnelly

A gaping chasm separates what we try to be aware of and what we actually are aware of. And I don't care how long your yardstick is, there's no measuring that drop. What I can set down here in writing only amounts to a catalog. Not a novel, not literature, not even art. Just a notebook with a line ruled down the center. And maybe a lesson or two in it somewhere. — Haruki Murakami

Lesson learned: If you're already resorting to writing shitty poetry (not the lovey-dovey kind) to get your guys attention within one month of meeting him, he is not the one. — Kate Madison

So here we are, a pack of Homo sapiens thinking that we know whether a person is female or male. Now that I've spent a few years researching and talking with people who fall under the transgender umbrella, I am confident saying that male/ female is not the only way to describe gender. The people I've come to know and love in the course of writing and photographing this book have helped me better understand the fluidity of gender and sex.

This lesson for me also reinforces what I've been writing about for years: once we get to know individuals who may be different from ourselves, it is less likely we will be wary of them. And maybe, just maybe, we will learn a little more about ourselves. — Susan Kuklin

You are not eternal. Leave an eternal mark. — McNonwuun

Through therapy and a lot of thinking and writing my memoirs, I've been able to use my life as a lesson. — Jane Fonda

I have learned to write about things that are personal without objectifying anybody or anything, and that's been an important lesson for me. It's useful not to dump on people while simultaneously expressing a truth or a feeling if it's necessary, without diluting the intensity of the lyric. — Martha Wainwright

According to Wallace, the expectation that art amuses is a 'poisonous lesson for a would-be artist to grow up with,' since it places all of the power with the audience, sometimes breeding resentment on the part of the author. 'I can see it in myself and in other young writers,' he told McCaffery: 'this desperate desire to please coupled with a kind of hostility to the reader.' Wallace expressed his 'hostility' by writing unwieldy sentences, refusing to fulfill readers' expectations, and 'bludgeoning the reader with data'
all strategies he used to wrestle back some of the power held by modern audiences. — Dorothy M. Kennedy

My family is number one in my life. I'll blow off writing or just about anything to make sure I take my son to preschool or watch him at his swimming lesson. — Henry Cho

I fear we have become a society more interested in writing the quote of another, than living the lesson, and creating a quote of our own. — Thurman P. Banks Jr.

People don't remember lessons. They remember stories. — Kamand Kojouri

The principal lesson of Emacs is that a language for extensions should not be a mere "extension language". It should be a real programming language, designed for writing and maintaining substantial programs. Because people will want to do that! — Richard Stallman

It's been reinforced to me, and it's a little cliche, but I've learned that you can't make a movie that even works, much less that's good, without really good writing and really good acting. That lesson has led me to not be distracted, so much, by the other stuff going on in filmmaking and to focus on the essence of a story, and the words and the events and the way that those are interpreted by the actors. That philosophy has taken me to a place that I really like. — Ben Affleck

Of course we will send postcards to Nutsawoo. And we shall bring him back a present as well. In fact,' she went on, with the instinctive knack every good governess has for turning something enjoyable into a lesson, and vice versa, 'I will expect all three of you to practice your writing by keeping a journal of our trip so that Nutsawoo may know how we spend our days. Why, by the time we return, he will think he has been to London himself! He will be the envy of all his little squirrel friends,' she declared.
Penelope had no way of knowing if this last statement was true. Could squirrels feel envy? Would they give two figs about London? Did Nutsawoo even have friends? — Maryrose Wood

Try writing an entire story with only a thousand words at your disposal. It's a terrific lesson in economy and precession. — Darynda Jones

Mort moved my ending to the beginning, took out all the adjectives, cut the whole thing in half, and made it one hundred percent better.
'That's how it's done,' he said. Best writing lesson I ever had. — Anita Diamant

Writing a poem is a lesson in the truest empathy. And to truly have empathy is to truly know power, or at least the only kind of power I'm interested in. — Zachary Schomburg

Learn a lot about the world and finish things, even if it is just a short story. Finish it before you start something else. Finish it before you start rewriting it. That's really important.
It's to find out if you're going to be a writer or not, because that's one of the most important lessons.
Most, maybe 90% of people, will start writing and never finish what they started. If you want to be a writer that's the hardest and most important lesson: Finish it. Then go back to fix it. — Tad Williams

The most important lesson in the writing trade is that any manuscript is improved if you cut away the fat. — Robert A. Heinlein

The best and easiest lesson for me was to learn that writing is mostly hard work. — Bonnie Jo Campbell

Every day after lunch when I was writing my first book, I'd nibble a square of fine chocolate and meditate on all that had gone into its creation: the sun and rain that spilled on the cocoa plant, the soil that nourished it, the hands that picked the beans, and so on. My taste of chocolate became a lesson on the interconnectedness of things, and the infinite blessings for which I am grateful. — Laura Hillenbrand

My first true lesson in writing came from Mr. Bowden when I was 16. At my high school, he was the teacher known to be the very best at literature and writing. — Jeff Lindsay

This backwards journey in the narrating of this 'membering, this remembrance, is a lesson I learned from Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, and which considers how language, in this case, English, the only language I know, is at present of profound interest, when used in a non-traditional manner. I have used this language in The Polished Hoe, and I call it many things, but the most precise definition I have given it is contained in a booklet published by the Giller Prize Foundation, celebrating the tenth anniversary of this literary prize. In that review of the literary problems I faced in the writing of The Polished Hoe in 2002, my main concern was to find a language, or to more strictly use the language I already knew, in such a way that it became, in my manipulation of it, a "new" language. And to explain the result of this experiment, I said that I intended to "creolize Oxford English. — Austin Clarke

I have learned one lesson as a writer ... keep writing and never throw any notes away. Written parts that can't be used today ... may be used for other books tomorrow. — Timothy Pina

Is this not the reason I write, to leave a piece of me behind? — Aisha Mirza

Maybe the hardest lesson is the one I have to learn over and over again, that each story is its own animal, that every story I write is going to come only with difficulty. — Bonnie Jo Campbell

When it comes to writers, I'm a huge fan of Ian McEwan. I've never taken a writing course, but reading and deconstructing his novels has been as good a lesson as any. — Deborah Copaken Kogan

Here's the first major lesson: Writing is not an activity. It's not something you sit down at the keyboard, and just start doing. That's called 'typing.' Typing is an activity ... Writing is a process. And if you start thinking of it as a process, life gets so much easier. — Jeff Bollow

Nothing brings home the fragility of the banking system or the potency of a financial crisis more vividly than writing about these issues from the eye of the storm. Watching the world's central bankers and finance officials grappling with the current situation - trying one thing after another to restore confidence, throwing everything they can at the problem, coping daily with unexpected and startling shifts in market sentiment - reinforces the lesson that there is no magic bullet or simple formula for dealing with financial panics. — Liaquat Ahamed

My biggest lesson ... was to try and create narrators that were believable ... so the listener becomes really invested in the story or the song. — Kristian Bush

(It's a weird thing, depression. Even now, writing this with a good distance of fourteen years from my lowest point, I haven't fully escaped. You get over it, but at the same time you never get over it. It comes back in flashes, when you are tired or anxious or have been eating the wrong stuff, and catches you off guard. I woke up with it a few days ago, in fact. I felt its dark wisps around my head, that ominous life-is-fear feeling. But then, after a morning with the best five- and six-year-olds in the world, it subsided. it is now an aside. Something to put brackets around. Life lesson: the way out is never through yourself.) — Matt Haig

In other words, I have tried to learn in my writing a monastic lesson I could probably not have learned otherwise: to let go of my idea of myself, to take myself with more than one grain of salt ... In religious terms, this is simply a matter of accepting life, and everything in life as a gift, and clinging to none of it, as far as you are able. You give some of it to others, if you can. Yet one should be able to share things with others without bothering too much about how they like it, either, or how they accept it. Assume they will accept it, if they need it. And if they don't need it, why should they accept it? That is their business. Let me accept what is mine and give them all their share, and go my way. — Thomas Merton

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

I guess the lesson is you can't go everywhere. You should still go everywhere you can. — Charles Finch

I do not turn to history to draw from it an easy lesson of hope, but to confront my experience with that of others, to acquire something I might call universal compassion, and also a sense of responsibility, responsibility for the state of my conscience. — Zbigniew Herbert

In music, recording, writing, photography, design, film-making and any other creative endeavour, it may be true that anyone can do it, but it is not quite as true as punk sometimes seemed to suggest that anyone can do it in a way that is appreciated by others. The key point is that, without determination and application, talent and ideas are just unrealised potential. That lesson-there for anyone who wishes to learn it-is perhaps punk's , and the Clash's, greatest legacy. — Marcus Gray

If there is any message in the 'Wimpy Kid' books, it is that reading can be and should be fun. As an adult reader, when I see an obvious moral lesson to be taught, I run in the other direction ... Kids can sniff out an adult agenda from an early age. I'm writing for entertainment, not to impress literary judges. — Jeff Kinney

I think my books are lighter and funnier than some of the big series out there. You may not walk away from my books having learned a life-altering lesson, but you will feel better for having laughed for a few hours. It's just a different style of writing. — Molly Harper

Newt spun, making her robe unfurl. "He's my familiar, bought and paid for. I can claim anything of his. Even his life." Al cleared his throat nervously. "That's good to know," he said lightly. "Important safety tip. Rachel, write that down somewhere as lesson number one. — Kim Harrison

Writing is a cerebral journey where the writer molds experience into useful thought capsules and thoughtfully takes recitative inventory of their spiritual depot. The act of personal essay writing is a subtle search to track and discover how a contiguous chain of occurrences links the essayist's case history of rational and irrational behavior. Writing a person's life story fosters acceptance of their prior personal failures and serves to open a doorway to living modestly and harmoniously. — Kilroy J. Oldster

The most important lesson my parents taught me is that writing is a job, one that requires discipline and commitment. Most of the time it's a fun job, a wonderful job, but sometimes it isn't, and those are the days that test you. — Jesse Kellerman

I actually think there are more Republicans than people realize who would be sympathetic to immigration reform in the rank and file. I think the lesson for Jeb Bush is politicians shouldn't write books with long lead times. — E. J. Dionne

The only lesson is, you gotta keep at it. — R.L. Stine

It's a great lesson about not being too precious about your writing. You have to try your hardest to be at the top of your game and improve every joke you can until the last possible second, and then you have to let it go. You can't be that kid standing at the top of the waterslide, overthinking it ... You have to let people see what you wrote. — Tina Fey

I think every professor and writer is in some way an exhibitionist because his or her normal activity is a theatrical one. When you give a lesson the situation is the same as writing a book. You have to capture the attention, the complicity of your audience. — Umberto Eco

I know a person who will poke the fire, set chairs straight, pick dust specks from the floor, arrange his table, snatch up a newspaper, take down any book which catches his eye, trim his nails, waste the morning anyhow, in short, and all without premeditation - simply because the only thing he ought to attend to is the preparation of a noonday lesson in formal logic which he detests. - William James — Mason Currey

Here is a lesson to brand in fire across any young historian's mind: If you try to do too much, you will not do anything. — Richard Marius

I had a professor in college who returned our graded essays, walked up to the chalkboard, and wrote in huge letters: "SO WHAT?" She threw the piece of chalk down and said, "Ask yourself that every time you turn in a piece of writing." It's a lesson I never forgot. — Austin Kleon

My first teacher was Steven Spielberg. I worked on Amazing Stories. That was my first job, as a writer and as a story editor. Watching him and his command of the tools of filmmaking, and his admiration for writing and the story itself, was the greatest lesson I ever had. — Mick Garris

The Mathematician's Shiva is a brilliant and compelling family saga full of warmth, pathos, history, and humor, not to mention a cast of delightfully quirky characters, and a math lesson or two; all together, a winning equation! When Rojstaczer writes about mathematics, you'd think he was writing about poetry. — Jonathan Evison