Ever find yourself chuckling at a witty line from your favorite author?
We bookworms know writers have a special way with words, even when they’re not crafting their next bestseller. Their quips about life, love, and the art of writing itself often hit home in the most unexpected ways.
These wisdom bombs remind us that behind every great book is a very human author, complete with doubts, joys, and occasional writer’s block.
In this article, let’s have a look at the most memorable quotes from writers who’ve touched our hearts and tickled our funny bones. It’s time to explore the clever, inspiring, and sometimes downright hilarious things authors have said over the years.
1. “You can make anything by writing.” — C.S. Lewis
2. “Half my life is an act of revision.” — John Irving
3. “If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn’t brood. I’d type a little faster.” — Isaac Asimov
4. “I think new writers are too worried that it has all been said before. Sure it has, but not by you.” — Asha Dornfest
5. “I’m a writer. And I live in imagination to survive in reality.” — Phyllis Webstad
6. “It’s okay. Writers should be strange.”— Edgar Allan Poe
7. “You fail only if you stop writing.” — Ray Bradbury
8. “Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers.” — Isaac Asimov
9. “The pen is the tongue of the mind.” — Miguel de Cervantes
10. “We are writers, my love. We don’t cry. We bleed on paper.” — A.Y.
11. “Always be a poet, even in prose.” — Charles Baudelaire
12. “A good writer possesses not only his own spirit but also the spirit of his friends.” — Friedrich Nietzsche
13. “A writer, I think, is someone who pays attention to the world.” – Susan Sontag
14. “A writer is a world trapped in a person.” — Victor Hugo
15. “Being a good writer is 3% talent, 97% not being distracted by the internet.” — Unknown
16. “Writer’s block: When your imaginary friends refuse to talk to you.” – Mary Papas
17. “A blank piece of paper is God’s way of telling us how hard it is to be God.” — Sidney Sheldon
18. “You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children.” — Madeleine L’Engle
19. “No tears in the writer. No tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer. No surprise in the reader.” – Robert Frost
20. “Writers live twice.” — Natalie Goldberg
21. “The purpose of a writer is to keep civilization from destroying itself.” — Albert Camus
22. “Words are a lens to focus one’s mind.” — Ayn Rand
23. “If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” — Toni Morrison
24. “Substitute ‘damn’ every time you’re inclined to write ‘very’; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.” — Mark Twain
25. “Let me live, love, and say it well in good sentences.” — Sylvia Plath
26. “Tears are words that need to be written.” — Paulo Coelho
27. “If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it. Or, if proper usage gets in the way, it may have to go.” — Elmore Leonard
28. “How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.” — Henry David Thoreau
29. “I kept always two books in my pocket, one to read, one to write in.” — Robert Louis Stevenson
30. “A book is made from a tree. It is an assemblage of flat, flexible parts imprinted with dark pigmented squiggles.” — Carl Sagan
31. “You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write.” — Saul Bellow
32. “Find out the reason that commands you to write.” — Rainer Maria Rilke
33. “Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.” — John Steinbeck
34. “Words can be like X-rays if you use them properly—they’ll go through anything.” — Aldous Huxley
35. “You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.” — Ray Bradbury
36. “I went for years not finishing anything. Because, of course, when you finish something you can be judged.” — Erica Jong
37. “Writing books is the closest men ever come to childbearing.” — Norman Mailer
38. “Writing is its own reward.” — Henry Miller
39. “I can shake off everything as I write; my sorrows disappear, my courage is reborn.” — Anne Frank
40. “Read, read, read. Read everything—trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it.” — William Faulkner
41. “Almost anyone can be an author; the business is to collect money and fame from this state of being.” — A.A. Milne
42. “Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.” — Benjamin Franklin
43. “A word after a word after a word is power.” — Margaret Atwood
44. “Writing comes from reading, and reading is the finest teacher of how to write.” — Annie Proulx
45. “To survive, you must tell stories.” — Umberto Eco
46. “To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme.” — Herman Melville
47. “Words do not express thoughts very well. They always become a little different immediately after they are expressed.” — Hermann Hesse
48. “Get it down. Take chances. It may be bad, but it’s the only way you can do anything really good.” — William Faulkner
49. “Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing.” — Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
50. “If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.” — Stephen King
51. “The secret to editing your work is simple: You need to become its reader instead of its writer.” — Zadie Smith
52. “The writer is an explorer. Every step is an advance into a new land.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
53. “If I waited for perfection, I would never write a word.” — Margaret Atwood
54. “Writing is the painting of the voice.” — Voltaire
55. “If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put foundations under them.” — Henry David Thoreau
56. “No one else sees the world the way you do, so no one else can tell the stories that you have to tell.” — Charles de Lint
57. “If you do not hear music in your words, you have put too much thought into your writing and not enough heart.” — Terry Brooks
58. “If you are in difficulties with a book, try the element of surprise: attack it at an hour when it isn’t expecting it.” — H.G. Wells
59. “Keep asking questions because people will always want to know the answer. Open with a question and don’t answer it until the end.” — Lee Child
60. “Be willing and unafraid to write badly, because often the bad stuff clears the way for good, or forms a base on which to build something better.” — Jennifer Egan
61. “The job of the novelist is to invent: to embroider, to color, to embellish, to make things up.” — Donna Tart
62. “The first draft is a skeleton. Just bare bones. The rest of the story comes later with revising.” — Judy Bloom
63. “Writing is an act of faith, not a grammar trick.” — E.B. White
64. “Creativity is a combination of discipline and childlike spirit.” — Robert Greene
65. “If you don’t see the book you want on the shelf, write it.” — Beverly Cleary
66. “Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on.” — Louis L’Amour
67. “When all else fails, write what your heart tells you. You can’t depend on your eyes, when your imagination is out of focus.” – Mark Twain
68. “Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.” – William Wordsworth
69. “But when people say, did you always want to be a writer? I have to say no! I always was a writer.” – Ursula K. Le Guin
70. “You may not write well every day, but you can always edit a bad page. You can’t edit a blank page.” – Jodi Picoult
71. “Stories are light. Light is precious in a world so dark. Begin at the beginning. Make some light.” – Kate DiCamillo
72. “Any writer worth his salt writes to please himself… it’s a self-exploratory operation that is endless.” – Harper Lee
73. “If you fall in love with the vision and not your words, the rewriting will become easier.” – Nora DeLoach
74. “As a writer, you should not judge. You should understand.” – Ernest Hemingway
75. “Successful writing is one part inspiration and two parts sheer stubbornness.” – Gillian Flynn
76. “That’s what you’re looking for as a writer when you’re working. You’re looking for your own freedom.” – Philip Roth
77. “You should write stories because you love the shape of stories and sentences and the creation of different words on a page.” – Annie Proulx
78. “Plot is no more than footprints left in the snow after your characters have run by on their way to incredible destinations.” – Ray Bradbury
79. “The secret of it all is to write… without waiting for a fit time or place.” — Walt Whitman
80. “Good stories are not written. They are rewritten.”— Phyllis Whitney
81. “I write only because there is a voice within me that will not be stilled.” — Sylvia Plath
82. “Writing is like sex. First you do it for love, then you do it for your friends, and then you do it for money.” — Virginia Woolf
83. “I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see, and what it means.” — Joan Didion
84. “When you are describing a shape, or sound, or tint, don’t state the matter plainly, but put it in a hint.” — Lewis Carroll
85. “Write a page a day. Only 300 words and in a year you have written a novel.” — Stephen King
Well, my fellow book lovers, we’ve taken quite a stroll through the garden of writerly wisdom, haven’t we?
As we tuck these pearls of insight into our mental pockets, let’s remember that writers are just like us – they struggle, they laugh, they ponder life’s big questions. Their words can be a comforting companion on quiet afternoons or a spark for creativity.
The next time you’re curled up with a good book, imagine the author sitting across from you, sharing these thoughts over a warm cup of tea. Who knows? You might find yourself inspired to pick up a pen and add your quote to the mix.
After all, every writer started as a reader, just like you and me.
Marcel Iseli
Hey fellow Linguaholics! It’s me, Marcel. I am the proud owner of linguaholic.com. Languages have always been my passion and I have studied Linguistics, Computational Linguistics and Sinology at the University of Zurich. It is my utmost pleasure to share with all of you guys what I know about languages and linguistics in general.