Quotes About Writing
A hidden nerve is what every writer is ultimately about. It’s what all writers wish to uncover when writing about themselves in this age of the personal memoir. And yet it’s also the first thing every writer learns to sidestep, to disguise, as though this nerve were a deep and shameful secret that needs to be swathed in many sheaths.
Andre’ Achman – A Literary Pilgrim Progresses to the Past, NYT, 8-28-2000
Writers the most learned, the most accurate in details, and the soundest in tendency, frequently fall into a habit which can neither be cured nor pardoned,—the habit of making history into the proof of their theories.
– History of Freedom and Other Essays, Ch 8, (1907)
A true critic ought to dwell rather upon excellencies than imperfections, to discover the concealed beauties of a writer, and communicate to the world such things as are worth their observation.
Joseph Addison (1672-1719) – The Spectator (1711-12), No. 291 February 2, 1712.
Good books, like good friends, are few and chosen; the more select, the more enjoyable.
– Quoted in Solace and Companionship of Books, ed. A. Ireland, London, 1883, p. 265.
The great artist is the simplifier.
Henri-Frédéric Amiel (1821-1881) – Amiel’s Journal, 1849-1872, 25 Nov, 1861, pub 1883, tr. Mrs. Humphrey Ward
I’m a bit of a grinder. Novels are very long, and long novels are very, very long. It’s just a hell of a lot of man-hours. I tend to just go in there, and if it comes, it comes. A morning when I write not a single word doesn’t worry me too much. If I come up against a brick wall, I’ll just go and play snooker or something or sleep on it, and my subconscious will fix it for me. Usually, it’s a journey without maps but a journey with a destination, so I know how it’s going to begin and I know how it’s going to end, but I don’t know how I’m going to get from one to the other. That, really, is the struggle of the novel.
Martin Amis (1949-) – “The Pros and Cons of Martin Amis,” Graham Fuller interviews Amis in Interview magazine (v. 25.5, May 1995)
The greatest thing by far is to have a command of metaphor. This alone cannot be imparted by another; it is the mark of genius, for to make good metaphors implies an eye for resemblances.
Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC) – Poetics (1459a4)
A good style must, first of all, be clear. It must not be mean or above the dignity of the subject. It must be appropriate.
Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC) – The art of Rhetoric
In general, what is written must be easy to read and easy to speak; which is the same.
Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC) – The Art of Rhetoric, tr H.C. Lawson-Trancred, Ch 3, Sect. 5
If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn’t brood. I’d type a little faster.
Isaac Asimov (1920-1992) -Life, Jan. 1984
A word after a word
after a word is power.
Margaret Atwood (1939- ) “Spelling,” Margaret Atwood: works and impact ed. Reingard M. Nischik, Camden House, 2000
Our sufferings and weaknesses, in so far as they are personal, are of no literary interest whatsoever. They are only interesting in so far as we can see them as typical of the human condition.
W.H. Auden – The Dyer’s Hand, (1962)
Before you begin to write a sentence, imagine the scene you want to paint with your words. Imagine that you are the character and feel what the character feels. Smell what the character smells, and hear with that character’s ears. For an instant, before you begin to write, see and feel what you want the reader to see and feel.
Othello Bach – How to Write a Great Story, Choice Books, 1999.
Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.
Francis Bacon (1561-1626) – Essays – “Of Studies,” (1597-1625).
The reason why so few good books are written is that so few people who can write know anything.
Walter Bagehot (1826 – 1877) – The Works and Life of Walter Bagehot, Volume 10, ed. Mrs. Russell Barrington, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1915, p217
Writers, like teeth, are divided into incisors and grinders.
Walter Bagehot (1826 – 1877) – The first Edinburgh Reviewers, in Estimates of Some Englishmen and Scotsmen, London, 1858, p34.
I am a galley slave to pen and ink.
Honore de Balzac – letter to Madame Zulma Carraud, 2 July 1832
A hidden nerve is what every writer is ultimately about. It’s what all writers wish to uncover when writing about themselves in this age of the personal memoir. And yet it’s also the first thing every writer learns to sidestep, to disguise, as though this nerve were a deep and shameful secret that needs to be swathed in many sheaths.
Andre’ Achman – A Literary Pilgrim Progresses to the Past, NYT, 8-28-2000
Writers the most learned, the most accurate in details, and the soundest in tendency, frequently fall into a habit which can neither be cured nor pardoned,—the habit of making history into the proof of their theories.
– History of Freedom and Other Essays, Ch 8, (1907)
A true critic ought to dwell rather upon excellencies than imperfections, to discover the concealed beauties of a writer, and communicate to the world such things as are worth their observation.
Joseph Addison (1672-1719) – The Spectator (1711-12), No. 291 February 2, 1712.
Good books, like good friends, are few and chosen; the more select, the more enjoyable.
– Quoted in Solace and Companionship of Books, ed. A. Ireland, London, 1883, p. 265.
The great artist is the simplifier.
Henri-Frédéric Amiel (1821-1881) – Amiel’s Journal, 1849-1872, 25 Nov, 1861, pub 1883, tr. Mrs. Humphrey Ward
I’m a bit of a grinder. Novels are very long, and long novels are very, very long. It’s just a hell of a lot of man-hours. I tend to just go in there, and if it comes, it comes. A morning when I write not a single word doesn’t worry me too much. If I come up against a brick wall, I’ll just go and play snooker or something or sleep on it, and my subconscious will fix it for me. Usually, it’s a journey without maps but a journey with a destination, so I know how it’s going to begin and I know how it’s going to end, but I don’t know how I’m going to get from one to the other. That, really, is the struggle of the novel.
Martin Amis (1949-) – “The Pros and Cons of Martin Amis,” Graham Fuller interviews Amis in Interview magazine (v. 25.5, May 1995)
The greatest thing by far is to have a command of metaphor. This alone cannot be imparted by another; it is the mark of genius, for to make good metaphors implies an eye for resemblances.
Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC) – Poetics (1459a4)
A good style must, first of all, be clear. It must not be mean or above the dignity of the subject. It must be appropriate.
Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC) – The art of Rhetoric
In general, what is written must be easy to read and easy to speak; which is the same.
Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC) – The Art of Rhetoric, tr H.C. Lawson-Trancred, Ch 3, Sect. 5
If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn’t brood. I’d type a little faster.
Isaac Asimov (1920-1992) -Life, Jan. 1984
A word after a word
after a word is power.
Margaret Atwood (1939- ) “Spelling,” Margaret Atwood: works and impact ed. Reingard M. Nischik, Camden House, 2000
Our sufferings and weaknesses, in so far as they are personal, are of no literary interest whatsoever. They are only interesting in so far as we can see them as typical of the human condition.
W.H. Auden – The Dyer’s Hand, (1962)
Before you begin to write a sentence, imagine the scene you want to paint with your words. Imagine that you are the character and feel what the character feels. Smell what the character smells, and hear with that character’s ears. For an instant, before you begin to write, see and feel what you want the reader to see and feel.
Othello Bach – How to Write a Great Story, Choice Books, 1999.
Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.
Francis Bacon (1561-1626) – Essays – “Of Studies,” (1597-1625).
The reason why so few good books are written is that so few people who can write know anything.
Walter Bagehot (1826 – 1877) – The Works and Life of Walter Bagehot, Volume 10, ed. Mrs. Russell Barrington, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1915, p217
Writers, like teeth, are divided into incisors and grinders.
Walter Bagehot (1826 – 1877) – The first Edinburgh Reviewers, in Estimates of Some Englishmen and Scotsmen, London, 1858, p34.
I am a galley slave to pen and ink.
Honore de Balzac – letter to Madame Zulma Carraud, 2 July 1832
Once the grammar has been learned, writing is simply talking on paper and in time learning what not to say.
Beryl Bainbridge (1932-2010) – Contemporary Novelists, 2nd edition, James Vinson & D. L. Kirkpatrick (eds.), (London: St. James Press, 1976)
Convince yourself that you are working in clay, not marble, on paper, not eternal bronze: let that first sentence be as stupid as it wishes. No one will rush out and print it as it stands.
Jacques Barzun, (1907-2012) “A Writers Discipline,” in Jacques Barzun on Writing, Editing and Publishing, (University of Chicago Press), 1971.
A man may speak with his tongue and only be heard around the corner; but another man may speak with his pen and be heard around the globe.
James Lendall Basford (1845-1915) – Seven Seventy Seven Sensations, 1897, p7
Say what you want about it, Hell is story-friendly… The mechanisms of hell are nicely attuned to the mechanisms of narrative. Not so the pleasures of Paradise. Paradise is not a story. It’s about what happens when the stories are over.
Charles Baxter (1947 – ) – Burning Down the House, Essays on Fiction, Graywolf Press, 2013.
I began to see that about half the student’s battle is learning basic skills, while the other half involves tapping into imagination, memory and a singular view of life and the world, a view no one else shares until you put it into words.
Annie Bernays (1930 – ) – Pupils Glimpse an Idea, Teacher Gets a Gold Star, NYT, 2-38-2000.
You must be able to step inside your character’s skin and at the same time to remain outside the dicey circumstances you have maneuvered her into. I can’t remember how many times I advised students to stop writing the sunny hours and write from where it hurts: “No one wants to read polite. It puts them to sleep.”
Annie Bernays (1930 – ) – Pupils Glimpse an Idea, Teacher Gets a Gold Star, NYT, 2-38-2000.
It’s very hard to write about that which is always beautiful and pleasant and good. You don’t get anywhere with it. There’s no friction in it. There’s no trouble. You have to have trouble. Somebody’s got to get in trouble, or no one wants to read it.
Paul Bowles (1910-1999) – Quoted in Advice to Writers, ed John Winokur, web edition: Website: http://www.advicetowriters.com/home/2012/11/6/you-have-to-have-trouble.html
Publishers are thieves, they are on the other side of the barricade.
Paul Bowles (1910-1999) – Interview, “Tired in Tangier,” Asshole Magazine, 1998. http://www.asshole.org/interview/indexe.htm
A writer — and, I believe, generally all persons — must think that whatever happens to him or her is a resource. All things have been given to us for a purpose, and an artist must feel this more intensely. All that happens to us, including our humiliations, our misfortunes, our embarrassments, all is given to us as raw material, as clay, so that we may shape our art.
Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986), Twenty Conversations with Borges, Including a Selection of Poems : Interviews by Roberto Alifano, 1981–1983, Lascaux Publishers, (1984)
And what, you ask, does writing teach us? First and foremost, it reminds us that we are alive and that it is a gift and a privilege, not a right. We must earn life once it has been awarded us. Life asks for rewards back because it has favored us with animation. So while our art cannot, as we wish it could, save us from wars, privation, envy, greed, old age, or death, it can revitalize us amidst it all.
Ray Bradbury (1920-2012)- Zen in the Art of Writing Rosetta Books, (1990) Preface
It is by sitting down to write every morning that one becomes a writer. Those who do this do not remain amateurs.
Gerald Brenan (1894-1987) – quoted in Advice to Writers: A Compendium of Quotes, Anecdotes, and Writerly Wisdom, ed. Jon Winokur, Random House, 1999.
When I write a page that reads badly I know that it is myself who has written it. When it reads well it has come through from somewhere else.
Gerald Brenan (1894-1987) –
I’m just going to write because I cannot help it.
Charlotte Brontë (1816-1855) – Title of a Quote Notebook, marketed through Amazon, 2020
- David Alan
- Last Updated March 23, 2025