Whether you're a beginner or a full-time writer, it may be difficult at times to maintain the flow of writing. However, as writers striving to stay consistent and to perfect our craft, simple reminders and motivations are supportive and overall extremely helpful during the writing process. Here are 11 writing quotes by a number of successful authors providing beneficial reminders and advice describing their unique writing experience.
- "To me, the greatest pleasure of writing is not what it’s about, but the inner music the words make." -Truman Capote
- “You’ve got to write badly. If you write badly at least you’ve got something to rewrite. If you’re scared to write badly, then you’ve got nothing.” –Toni Grisoni
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- “The writing is—I’m free from pain. It’s the place where I live; it’s where I have control; it’s where nobody tells me what to do; it’s where my imagination is fecund and I am really at my best. Nothing matters more in the world or in my body or anywhere else when I’m writing. It is dangerous because I’m thinking up dangerous, difficult things, but it is also extremely safe for me to be in that place.” –Toni Morrison
- "We need writers who fear nothing." -Yevgeny Zamyatin
- “Writer’s block happens when writers become more interested in the outcome of their efforts than in the process of writing. It usually takes the form of a frustrated attempt to make their work perfect and harsh self-criticism when they fail.” –Phil Stutz & Barry Michels, The Tools
- " Literature always anticipates life. It does not copy it, but molds it to its purpose." -Oscar Wilde
- "That’s what I love about writing. Once you get the words down on paper, in print, they start to make sense. It’s like you don’t know what you think until it dribbles from your brain down your arm and into your hand and out through your fingers and shows up on the computer screen, and you read it and realize: That’s really true; I believe that." -Ellen Wittlinger
- “When I am writing, I am trying to find out who I am, who we are, what we’re capable of, how we feel, how we lose and stand up, and go on from darkness into darkness. I’m trying for that. But I’m also trying for the language. I’m trying to see how it can really sound. I really love language. I love it for what it does for us, how it allows us to explain the pain and the glory, the nuances and delicacies of our existence. And then it allows us to laugh, allows us to show wit. Real wit is shown in language. We need language.” -Maya Angelou
- “If you write with enough assurance and confidence, you’re allowed to do whatever you like. So write your story as it needs to be written. Write it as honestly, and it as best as you can.” –Neil Gaiman
- "Everybody tells you that to be a writer, you have to read and write a lot. That’s true. But it’s not all of it. That’ll get you to understand the technical side. It’ll help you grasp the way a story is built. But that doesn’t put meat on the bones you arrange. For that, you need everything but reading and writing. Go live. Travel. Ride a bike. Eat weird food. Experience things. Otherwise, what the f*** are you going to talk about?" -Chuck Wendig
- "If you can still write in spite of the fact that you’re not getting paid, that nobody cares about what you’re writing, that nobody wants to publish it, that everybody is telling you to do something else, and you still want to and you still enjoy it and you can’t stop doing it … then you’re a writer." -Joanne Harris
