“Coal miners don’t get coal miners’ block” John Green’s Dad — Quotes for writers (and people who like quotes)
I delete about 90% of my first drafts…so it doesn’t really matter much if on a particular day I write beautiful and brilliant prose that will stick in the minds … Continue reading
If you can read you can write – not so says Richard Hugo, even if you have a Phd — Quotes for writers (and people who like quotes)
Scholars seem to assume that if you can read you can write. It’s sad to see someone with a fresh Ph.D. coast for a few years, understandably after such a … Continue reading
William Safire on the Great Rules of Writing — Quotes for writers (and people who like quotes)
Do not put statements in the negative form. And don’t start sentences with a conjunction. If you reread your work, you will find on rereading that a great deal of … Continue reading
Vita Sackville-West on what we lose if we don’t write — Quotes for writers (and people who like quotes)
It is necessary to write, if the days are not to slip emptily by. How else, indeed, to clap the net over the butterfly of the moment? For the moment … Continue reading
William Faulkner on what a writer would sacrifice for a good poem — Quotes for writers (and people who like quotes)
The artist’s only responsibility is his art. He will be completely ruthless if he is a good one…. If a writer has to rob his mother, he will not hesitate: … Continue reading
Jack Kerouac on born writers…Quotes for Writers (and people who like quotes_
Genius gives birth, talent delivers. What Rembrandt or Van Gogh saw in the night can never be seen again. Born writers of the future are amazed already at what they’re … Continue reading
Kate Atkinson on recycling your writing – quotes for writers (and anyone who likes quotes)
I usually start writing a novel that I then abandon. When I say abandon, I don’t think any writer ever abandons anything that they regard as even a half-good sentence. … Continue reading
This is the stuff of writing: George Elliot…Quotes for writers (and people who like quotes)
There is much pain that is quite noiseless; and vibrations that make human agonies are often a mere whisper in the roar of hurrying existence. There are glances of hatred … Continue reading
poetry makes the private world public…Allen Ginsberg Quotes for writers (and people who like quotes)
Poetry is not an expression of the party line. It’s that time of night, lying in bed, thinking what you really think, making the private world public, that’s what the … Continue reading
Sue Townsend on the sex appeal of books — Quotes for writers (and people who like quotes)
“I’ve always loved books. I’m passionate about them. I think books are sexy. They are smooth and solid and contain delightful surprises. They smell good. They fit into a handbag … Continue reading
“Everything in life is writable about…” Quotes for writers (and people who like quotes)
And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is … Continue reading
Robert Graves on how he could afford to write poetry — Quotes for writers (and people who like quotes)
Prose books are the show dogs I breed and sell to support my cat. The poet Robert Graves author of I, Claudius and Goodbye To All that and other good … Continue reading
Franz Kafka on the kind of books we should be reading QUOTES FOR WRITERS (and people who like quotes)
I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound and stab us. If the book we’re reading doesn’t wake us up with a blow on the … Continue reading
Why we need books and stories and the ability to make things up – Quotes for writers (and people who like quotes)
Without imagination we are all a little in prison A.L. Kennedy BBC Radio Four Point of View June 15th photo credit: boellstiftung via photopin cc
BRIDGET WHELAN writer 