Brainy Quotes

Inkspirations: 50 Quotes to Ignite Your Writing Muse

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• “Writing is an exploration. You start from nothing and learn as you go.” – E.L. Doctorow
• “The art of writing is the art of discovering what you believe.” – Gustave Flaubert
• “Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on.” – Louis L’Amour
• “The only way to do great work is to love what you do.” – Steve Jobs

“A word after a word after a word is power.” – Margaret Atwood

• “To me, the greatest pleasure of writing is not what it’s about, but the inner music that words make.” – Truman Capote
• “Write with the door closed, rewrite with the door open.” – Stephen King
• “The first draft is just you telling yourself the story.” – Terry Pratchett
• “I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see, and what it means.” – Joan Didion

“You fail only if you stop writing.” – Ray Bradbury

• “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” – Maya Angelou
• “The beautiful part of writing is that you don’t have to get it right the first time, unlike, say, a brain surgeon.” – Robert Cormier
• “You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.” – Jack London

• “I’m not a very good writer, but I’m an excellent rewriter.” – James Michener
• “Writing is the painting of the voice.” – Voltaire
• “The best time for planning a book is while you’re doing the dishes.” – Agatha Christie
• “A professional writer is an amateur who didn’t quit.” – Richard Bach

“Write your heart out.” – Jane Yolen

• “You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.” – Ray Bradbury
• “I write because I don’t know what I think until I read what I say.” – Flannery O’Connor
• “Writing is an escape from a world that crowds me. I like being alone in a room. It’s almost a form of meditation, an investigation of my own life.” – Neil Simon
• “The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say but what we are unable to say.” – Anaïs Nin

“You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write.” – Saul Bellow

• “I can shake off everything as I write; my sorrows disappear, my courage is reborn.” – Anne Frank
• “Writing is the only thing that, when I do it, I don’t feel I should be doing something else.” – Gloria Steinem
• “Easy reading is damn hard writing.” – Nathaniel Hawthorne
• “Write it. Shoot it. Publish it. Crochet it, sauté it, whatever. MAKE.” – Joss Whedon

“There is no rule on how to write. Sometimes it comes easily and perfectly; sometimes it’s like drilling rock and then blasting it out with charges.” – Ernest Hemingway

• “I write for the same reason I breathe—because if I didn’t, I would die.” – Isaac Asimov
• “Write about the emotions you fear the most.” – Laurie Halse Anderson
• “I don’t need an alarm clock. My ideas wake me.” – Ray Bradbury
• “The greatest part of a writer’s time is spent in reading, in order to write; a man will turn over half a library to make one book.” – Samuel Johnson

“The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.” – Mark Twain

• “If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write.” – Stephen King
• “To write well, express yourself like the common people, but think like a wise man.” – Aristotle
• “Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader—not the fact that it’s raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.” – E.L. Doctorow

“Every writer I know has trouble writing.” – Joseph Heller

• “A word is not the same with one writer as with another. One tears it from his guts. The other pulls it out of his overcoat pocket.” – Charles Peguy
• “Write drunk; edit sober.” – Peter De Vries
• “The scariest moment is always just before you start.” – Stephen King
• “I would advise anyone who aspires to a writing career that before developing his talent he would be wise to develop a thick hide.” – Harper Lee

“There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.” – W. Somerset Maugham

• “The first draft is just you telling yourself the story.” – Terry Pratchett
• “The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.” – Thomas Jefferson
• “A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.” – Thomas Mann
• “I love writing. I love the swirl and swing of words as they tangle with human emotions.” – James Michener

“A writer never has a vacation. For a writer, life consists of either writing or thinking about writing.” – Eugene Ionesco

• “The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say.” – Anaïs Nin
• “If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.” – Stephen King
• “The best time for planning a book is while you’re doing the dishes.” – Agatha Christie