Writing Motivation Quotes & Sayings

Any academic skill is quickly achievable if charged with clear purpose and an appeal to enthusiastic self-interest. Tarzan of the Apes only needed about twenty minutes to figure out how to read the beautiful Jane Porter's cursive writing. — T.K. Naliaka

Go On. Write. I dare you. — Madeline Dyer

I take the rawest, realest moments in anyone's life and I open them up and lay them bare. The innocence of a five year old child, the awkwardness of a teenager's first sexual encounter, the heartbreak of longing for a relationship you can't have, confronting the possibility of the death of your newborn child, whatever it is, you open your soul and put it out there and dare the world to read it, ready to have them stomp on you and laugh, but ready to do it again the next day. You have to put yourself out there as a writer, you can't play it safe. Great writing isn't safe. — Dan Alatorre

It can be done. It will be done. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Writing a journal article combines all the elements that deter motivation: The probability of success is low; the likelihood of criticism and rejection is high; and the outcome, even if successful, isn't always rewarding. — Paul J. Silvia

What prevents you from fully expressing yourself? — Lailah Gifty Akita

Can you imagine a world without books to read? — Lailah Gifty Akita

Every stage of life is a chapter of a book. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Write your sacred story. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Write the words on your heart. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Writers and learners will write better and learn more if they understand the "why" of what they are studying. — William Zinsser

You have to pay for this view (onto which he looks while writing), so our expenses keep us pretty motivated to write. It's a vicious cycle. — Pat Conroy

If you have to find devices to coax yourself to stay focused on writing, perhaps you should not be writing what you're writing. And if this lack of motivation is a constant problem, perhaps writing is not your forte. I mean, what is the problem? If writing bores you, that is pretty fatal. If that is not the case, but you find that it is hard going and it just doesn't flow, well, what did you expect? It is work; art is work. — Ursula K. Le Guin

We know nothing about motivation. All we can do is write books about it. — Peter Drucker

To be motivated to write a novel, I need to be unable not to write. — Johnny Rich

Great books make a great life. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Do not forget to write your sacred book. — Lailah Gifty Akita

All writing, all art, is an act of faith. If one tries to contribute to human understanding, how can that be called decadent? It's like saying a declaration of love is an act of decadence. Any work of art, provide it springs from a sincere motivation to further understanding between people, is an act of faith and therefore is an act of love. — Truman Capote

In fact, "talent" is as common as mud; what's rare is the motivation to sit down and actually do something with one's talent, the discipline to do it regularly, and the persistence to stick with it until it's finished. — Patricia C. Wrede

A young pianist & composer who has demonstrated an exceptional creativity, in both his playing & his writing, as well as showing us all, his very strong commitment & motivation to aim for high musical goals. Talent like his is rare. — Steve Lacy

When I have fully executed this phase of my life, then I can begin a new chapter. — Lailah Gifty Akita

I believe every story that is made in the mind of an author; has a trace in real world.A historical fiction completely or partly has happened in the past and a fiction will happen in the future. We are seeing many devices which Jules Verne predicted in his novels!One day you will hear about an invisible fellow. This thought causes motivation and gaiety for me when writing a story. — Hamid Karima

All the stories give unique inspiration. — Lailah Gifty Akita

There are some writers who sweep us along so strongly in their current of energy--Normal mailer, Tom Wolfe, Toni Morrison, William F. Buckley, Jr., Hunter Thompson, David Foster Wallace, Dave Eggers--that we assume that when they go to work the words just flow. Nobody thinks of the effort they made every morning to turn on the switch. You also have to turn on the switch. Nobody is going to do it for you. — William Zinsser

If someone asked for my recipe for happiness, step one would be finding out what you love most in the world and step two would be finding someone to pay you to do it. I consider myself very lucky indeed to be able to support myself by writing. — J.K. Rowling

The word 'NO' is the best motivation there is for the storyteller in you. — A.K. Kuykendall

I hope when people ask what you're going to do with your English degree and/or creative writing degree you'll say: 'Continue my bookish examination of the contradictions and complexities of human motivation and desire;' or maybe just: 'Carry it with me, as I do everything that matters.'
And then smile very serenely until they say, 'Oh. — Cheryl Strayed

The simple act of writing down a goal and making a written plan for its accomplishment moves you to the top 3 percent. — Brian Tracy

Life is a great Book. We are writing the history of our time. — Lailah Gifty Akita

I recall the Scriptures into my mind, therefore, I have hope. — Lailah Gifty Akita

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

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

I wonder sometimes if the motivation for writers ought to be contempt, not admiration. — Orson Scott Card

I'll
vacuum up my stale hair, I'll
pay all my neighbors' bad debts, I'll
write a poem called Yellow and put
my lips down to drink it up ... — Anne Sexton

I write well on the road. I have the energy, I have the motivation to write. I'm happy when I'm on the road. — Pam Houston

Some writers, notably Anton Chekov, argue that all characters must be admirable, because once we've looked at anyone deeply enough and understood their motivation we must identify with them rather than judge them. — Scarlett Thomas

If you don't write when you don't have time for it, you won't write when you do have time for it. — Katerina Stoykova Klemer

I want to live the rest of my life, however long or short, with as much sweetness as I can decently manage, loving all the people I love, and doing as much as I can of the work I still have to do. I am going to write fire until it comes out of my ears, my eyes, my noseholes
everywhere. Until it's every breath I breathe. I'm going to go out like a fucking meteor! — Audre Lorde

Lord I thank you for the wise-words and grace to write. — Lailah Gifty Akita

I felt like poisoning a monk. — Umberto Eco

Um um um um um. This business of - this business about marketing yourself, there's nothing wrong with that. Unless we're allowed to think that that's - that that's it. That that's the point, that that's the goal, you know? And that's the reason we're here - because that's so empty. And you as a writer know that it's - if you as a writer think that your job is to get as many people to like your stuff and think well of you as possible ... And I could, we could both, name writers that it's pretty obvious that's their motivation? It kills the work. Each time. That that's maybe 50 percent of it, but it misses all the magic. And it misses, it doesn't let you be afraid. Or it doesn't, like, let you like make yourself be, be vulnerable. Or ... nah, see, I'm not ... Anyway, anyway. — David Foster Wallace

Doing it all the time, whether or not we are in the mood, gives us ownership of our writing ability. It takes it out of the realm of conjuring where we stand on the rock of isolation, begging the winds for inspiration, and it makes it something as do-able as picking up a hammer and pounding a nail. Writing may be an art, but it is certainly a craft. It is a simple and workable thing that can be as steady and reliable as a chore - does that ruin the romance? — Julia Cameron

I hope you will be surprised and knowing at once. I hope you'll always have love. I hope you'll always have a good sense of humour. I hope when people ask what you're going to do with your English and/or creative writing degree you'll say: Continue my bookish examination of the contradictions and complexities of human motivation and desire; or maybe just: Carry it with me, as I do everything that matters. — Cheryl Strayed

Devote yourself to reading, learning and writing. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Although there appears to be a deep desire to approach dating, marriage, and sex in a way that pleases God, there nevertheless seems to be a profound lack of wisdom and practical know-how. There is a sizable gap between our understanding of the gospel and our knowledge of the Scriptures on one hand and our application of that knowledge on the other. The sheer amount of confusion, heartbreak, and fear that I have witnessed at The Village Church in regard to romantic relationships and sex provides my primary motivation for writing this book. — Matt Chandler

He has discovered the truths that keep writers chained to their desks: the primacy of the inner life and the sheer exhilaration of creating a world from scratch. — Barbara Klein Moss

Write something worth reading and your voice will be heard. — Teresa Mummert

I can't help but to wonder and write. — Lailah Gifty Akita

There is no such thing as lack of time, only unclear priorities and lack of motivation. It is better to abandon a project than to work on it half-heartedly for a protracted period of time. — Gudjon Bergmann

Historical gap is created due to missing written records. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Henry Luce to his Time magazine writers: Tell the history of our time through the people who make it. — Walter Isaacson

Talent isn't enough. You need motivation-and persistence, too: what Steinbeck called a blend of faith and arrogance. When you're young, plain old poverty can be enough, along with an insatiable hunger for recognition. You have to have that feeling of "I'll show them." If you don't have it, don't become a writer — Leon Uris

May God direct your paths. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Part of the writer's problem may be thee wrong kind of appreciation: hen he does work he knows to be less than he's capable of, his friends praise precisely those things he knows to be weak or meretricious. The writer who cannot write because nothing he writes is good enough, by his own standards, and because no one around him seems to share his standards, is in a special sort of bind:
the love of good fiction that gets him started in the first place makes him scornful of the flawed writing he does (nearly all first-draft writing is flawed) and his sense that nobody cares about truly good fiction robs him of motivation. — John Gardner

My primary motivation for writing is to communicate my perceptions and insights into the human condition, in a way that may provide understanding, comfort, and company to others. — Vanna Bonta

I wish to keep writing. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Love is the beauty of being. — Lailah Gifty Akita

The written word is greatest sacred documentation. — Lailah Gifty Akita

There is only one motive for writing a novel: to be published and read. To me there is no distinction between the mystery novel and the novel, only between good books and bad books. A good book takes the reader into a new world of experience; it is an experiment. A bad book, unless the writing is inept, reinforces the intransigent attitude of the reader not to experiment with a new world. Since there are criminals and psychopaths and sociopaths in all my novels they are in a way psychological thrillers. — John Franklin Bardin

I die a little everyday, in trying to revive what I lost yesterday! — Jasleen Kaur Gumber

The day when on the cover of my books, my name will appear in bigger fond than the title of my book- I will stop writing because that would be the death of the writer in me. — Kirtida Gautam

Inhale sky. Exhale stars. — Vytautaseneyevich

I'm a writer because, at an early age, I became convinced it was the one thing I could do to earn people's respect. It's true in the process I learned to love words and ideas and these days I actually like to get lost in the writing process. But the early fuel, the early motivation, was all about becoming a person worth loving. — Donald Miller

There's one kind of writing that's always easy: Picking out something obviously stupid and reiterating how stupid it obviously is. This is the lowest form of criticism, easily accomplished by anyone. And for most of my life, I have tried to avoid this. In fact, I've spend an inordinate amount of time searching for the underrated value in ostensibly stupid things. I understand Turtle's motivation and I would have watched Medelin in the theater. I read Mary Worth every day for a decade. I've seen Korn in concert three times and liked them once. I went to The Day After Tomorrow on opening night. I own a very expensive robot that doesn't do anything. I am open to the possibility that everyting has metaphorical merit, and I see no point in sardonically attacking the most predictable failures within any culture. — Chuck Klosterman

It takes a certain kind of mind to narrate, to work through character motivation, to be unforgiving to one's writer-self when it comes down to creating the minutiae of detail. Writing fiction requires stamina, a sense of how people's lives work, how people work toward and against one another and, above all, precision. — Cate Marvin

Our stories must be written, shared and communicated. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Perhaps for many Japanese, autobiographical fiction writing is life. We are a people expected to complement, to harmonize, to anticipate one another's needs. All without a single spoken clue.

And the reason is that he's in training to be a writer. Observing detail, understanding irony, interpreting motivation. Hiro knows that acts are symbolic. The hard sour fruit offered too soon in its season carries a message. He has made an error in the timing of his visit. He has inconvenienced that family.

This is the Japanese way. Cogitating on inner meaning. Revealing ourselves and perceiving others through carefully crafted scenes.

Writing our endless I-stories. — Lydia Minatoya

You don't need special traits, special genes, or special motivation to write a lot. You don't need to want to write--people rarely feel like doing unpleasant tasks that lack deadlines--so don't wait until you feel like it. Productive writing comes from harnessing the power of habit, and habits come from repetition

p.129 — Paul J. Silvia

In writing, as in life, its not the big words that are the problem its the little minds that read them. — Rassool Jibraeel Snyman

You will do well not to write for money, not because you won't get rich doing it, but because writing fueled by that sort of motivation becomes dull and lifeless and mediocre. — Joyce Rachelle

We all hate moral ambiguity in some sense, and yet it is also absolutely necessary. In writing a story, it is the place where I begin. — Amy Tan

He seems so frivolous and so careless, but he gives money to beggars, not frivolously or carelessly, but because he believes in giving money to beggars, and giving it to them "where they stand".
He says he knows perfectly well all the arguments against giving money to beggars. But he finds those to be precisely the arguments for giving money to them. If beggars are lazy or deceptive or wanting a drink, he knows only too well his own lack of motivation, his own dishonesty, his own thirst.
He doesn't believe in "scientific charity" because that is too easy, as easy as writing a check. He believes in "promiscuous charity" because that is really difficult. "It means the most dark and terrible of all human actions - talking to a man. In fact, I know of nothing more difficult than really talking to the poor men we meet." (pp. 13-14) — Dale Ahlquist

Most people do a good deal of whatever they do motivated by love. For me, few stories are truly complete without it. — Sara Sheridan

Part of my motivation for writing mysteries for young people is that I loved mysteries when I was growing up, and now that I'm on the creative end of things, I'm discovering that they're even more fun to write! — Wendelin Van Draanen

Action, reaction, motivation, emotion, all have to come from the characters. Writing a love scene requires the same elements from the writer as any other. — Nora Roberts

The sooner you finish procrastinating, the sooner you can get back to your art. — Stephanie Lennox

When you've worked hard and done well and walked through that doorway of opportunity, you do not slam it shut behind you. — Guy Kawasaki

The biggest and first obstacle any artist faces is not believing they can do something. You have the talent. Just believe you are capable of doing it, because you are. Writing anything, for anyone, regardless of expertise, is like crossing the Atlantic in a canoe. What you are doing is saying "I don't know how to row". Start rowing, you will get there. Just know it will take time and perseverance, but you will get there! — Aaron Denius Garcia

A hammer made of deadlines is the surest tool for crushing writer's block. — Ryan Lilly

I write to give strength to my spirit. — Lailah Gifty Akita

I was learning the craft; I didn't study writing in school. Rejection was my motivation, and failure is what taught me. — Pierce Brown

The professional loves her work. She is invested in it wholeheartedly. But she does not forget that the work is not her. — Steven Pressfield

It's what the Pixies always said about music - they were writing songs and just trying not to be boring. That was their main motivation and it worked for them. I remember reading that and thinking that was the way to do it. — Jonny Greenwood

Inspiration comes from so many sources. Music, other fiction, the non-fiction I read, TV shows, films, news reports, people I know, stories I hear, misheard words or lyrics, dreams ... Motivation? The memory of the rush I get from a really good writing session - even on a bad day, I know I'll find that again if I keep going. — Trudi Canavan

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

Motivation is more like a skill, akin to reading or writing, that can be learned and honed. Scientists have found that people can get better at self-motivation if they practice the right way. The trick, researchers say, is realizing that a prerequisite to motivation is believing we have authority over our actions and surroundings. To — Charles Duhigg

Education stimulates self-study. — Lailah Gifty Akita

I knew my motivations for going to each place and what I was looking for. If I don't do that then I generally don't write about my travels. — Jessa Crispin

Most of the complexity of the stories has developed as the stories came along (and may be a product of the principle that "nothing is what it seems"). I did start with some essential ambiguousness in the aliens' motivation and the questions this raises in human minds, which I consider to have been disregarded in Contact (novel and film). That, in part, may be what has delayed the writing of the fifth and sixth novelettes in the series. — James Gunn

Without visions and written goals, what direction are we going to head? — Lailah Gifty Akita

The biblical stories are the greatest sacred-inspirations. — Lailah Gifty Akita

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

You can't stumble into an adventure. An artist must dance, not walk, in order to inspire their audience. This patient audience who has witnessed all that you've ever performed. So don't be shy. Just dance. Set this scene into motion. — F.K. Preston

I will wholeheartedly perform my holy duties. — Lailah Gifty Akita

If the writer believes that our life is and will remain essentially mysterious, if he looks upon us as beings existing in a created order to whose laws we freely respond, then what he sees on the surface will be of interest to him only as he can go through it into an experience of mystery itself. His kind of fiction will always be pushing its own limits outward toward the limits of mystery, because for this kind of writer, the meaning of a story does not begin except at a depth where adequate motivation and adequate psychology and the various determinations have been exhausted. Such a writer will be interested in what we don't understand rather than in what we do. He will be interested in possibility rather than probability. He will be interested in characters who are forced out to meet evil and grace and who act on a trust beyond themselves - whether they know clearly what it is they act upon or not. — Flannery O'Connor

We write to give strength to our souls and souls of others. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Passion is a deep love for sacred activity. — Lailah Gifty Akita

We can help the next generation, with the stories we write today. — Lailah Gifty Akita

What you think and how you think, influences what you ink and how you ink. — Ifeanyi Enoch Onuoha

To be taken seriously about doing something creative and probably travel a lot. That was my motivation. I knew I was good, I knew I could write. I also knew you could get laid really easily. — David Bowie