Quotes about writers and writing

"Never write on a subject until you have read yourself full of it."

Richter, Jean Paul on writers and writing   

"A writer writes not because he is educated but because he is driven by the need to communicate. Behind the need to communicate is the need to share. Behind the need to share is the need to be understood. The writer wants to be understood much more than he wants to be respected or praised or even loved. And that perhaps, is what makes him different from others."

Rosten, Leo on writers and writing
3 fans of this quote   

"Every writer is a narcissist. This does not mean that he is vain; it only means that he is hopelessly self-absorbed."

Rosten, Leo on writers and writing   

"The only reason for being a professional writer is that you can't help it."

Rosten, Leo on writers and writing   

"Whores and writers, Mahound. We are the people you can't forgive."

Rushdie, Salman on writers and writing   

"Writers and politicians are natural rivals. Both groups try to make the world in their own images; they fight for the same territory."

Rushdie, Salman on writers and writing   

"I make no complaint. I am a writer. I do not accept my condition; I will strive to change it; but I inhabit it, I am trying to learn from it."

Rushdie, Salman on writers and writing   

"Books choose their authors; the act of creation is not entirely a rational and conscious one."

Rushdie, Salman on writers and writing   

"It is excellent discipline for an author to feel that he must say all that he has to say in the fewest possible words, or his reader is sure to skip them. "

Ruskin, John on writers and writing   

"I am paid by the word, so I always write the shortest words possible."

Russell, Bertrand on writers and writing
3 fans of this quote   

"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 passes, it is forgotten; the mood is gone; life itself is gone. That is where the writer scores over his fellows: he catches the changes of his mind on the hop. Growth is exciting; growth is dynamic and alarming. Growth of the soul, growth of the mind."

Sackville-West, Vita on writers and writing   

"Writing is a question of finding a certain rhythm. I compare it to the rhythms of jazz. Much of the time life is a sort of rhythmic progression of three characters. If one tells oneself that life is like that, one feels it less arbitrary."

Sagan, Francoise on writers and writing   

"The trade of authorship is a violent, and indestructible obsession."

Sand, George on writers and writing   

"Writing is to descend like a miner to the depths of the mine with a lamp on your forehead, a light whose dubious brightness falsifies everything, whose wick is in permanent danger of explosion, whose blinking illumination in the coal dust exhausts and corrodes your eyes."

Sauser, Blaise Cendrars on writers and writing   

"When an author is too meticulous about his style, you may presume that his mind is frivolous and his content flimsy."

Seneca on writers and writing   

"The man who writes about himself and his own time is the only man who writes about all people and about all time."

Shaw, George Bernard on writers and writing   

"You must not suppose, because I am a man of letters, that I never tried to earn an honest living."

Shaw, George Bernard on writers and writing   

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"I cringe when critics say I'm a master of the popular novel. What's an unpopular novel?"

Shaw, Irwin on writers and writing   

"Easy writings curse is hard reading."

Sheridan, Richard Brinsley on writers and writing   

"Thus, with child to speak, and helpless in my throes, biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite: Fool! said my muse to me, look in thy heart, and write."

Sidney, Sir Philip on writers and writing   

"Writing is not a profession, but a vocation of unhappiness."

Simenon, Georges on writers and writing   

"A good writer is basically a story teller, not a scholar or a redeemer of mankind."

Singer, Isaac Bashevis on writers and writing   

"Paper and ink are all but trash, if I cannot find the thought which the writer did think."

Smith, Dr. Walter on writers and writing   

"What I like in a good author isn't what he says, but what he whispers."

Smith, Logan Pearsall on writers and writing   

"Whiskey has killed more men than bullets, but most men would rather be full of whiskey than bullets. What I like in a good author is not what he says, but what he whispers."

Smith, Logan Pearsall on writers and writing
3 fans of this quote   

"Agatha Christie has given more pleasure in bed than any other woman."

Smith, Nancy Banks on writers and writing   

"The writer does the most good who gives his reader the most knowledge and takes from him the least time."

Smith, Sydney on writers and writing   

"Employ your time in improving yourself by other men's writings so that you shall come easily by what others have labored hard for."

Socrates on writers and writing   

"Writing is the continuation of politics by other means."

Sollers, Philippe on writers and writing   

"For a country to have a great writer is like having another government. That's why no r?gime has ever loved great writers, only minor ones."

Solzhenitsyn, Alexander on writers and writing   

"The writer is either a practicing recluse or a delinquent, guilt-ridden one; or both. Usually both."

Sontag, Susan on writers and writing   

"The best emotions to write out of are anger and fear or dread. The least energizing emotion to write out of is admiration. It is very difficult to write out of because the basic feeling that goes with admiration is a passive contemplative mood."

Sontag, Susan on writers and writing
3 fans of this quote   

"Writers are a little below the clowns and a little above the trained seals."

Steinbeck, John on writers and writing   

"The profession of book writing makes horse racing seem like a solid, stable business."

Steinbeck, John on writers and writing
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"The discipline of the written word punishes both stupidity and dishonesty."

Steinbeck, John on writers and writing   

"Writing is the only thing that, when I do it, I don't feel I should be doing something else."

Steinem, Gloria on writers and writing   

"What you're trying to do when you write is to crowd the reader out of his own space and occupy it with yours, in a good cause. You're trying to take over his sensibility and deliver an experience that moves from mere information."

Stone, Robert on writers and writing   

"What an occupation! To sit and flay your fellow men and then offer their skins for sale and expect them to buy them."

Strindberg, J. August on writers and writing   

"Let's face it, writing is hell."

Styron, William on writers and writing
4 fans of this quote   

"O Grub Street! how do I bemoan thee, whose graceless children scorn to own thee! . Yet thou hast greater cause to be ashamed of them, than they of thee."

Swift, Jonathan on writers and writing