October 2009

Quotes

When I find a good quote about writing, I jot it down on a note card, old Target receipt or gum wrapper. I like to have these inspiring bits of wisdom around, on my writing desk and in my pockets. The best quotes provide much-needed creative companionship and courage as I undertake the difficult, often lonely work that is writing.

I especially like the quotes wherein gifted, prolific writers admit how hard writing can be. If they can battle and beat their dragons, then so can I. And I like the heartening quotes, too.

Below are some of my favorites. Write them on your own gum wrappers and old Target receipts, and leave them in places where you will accidentally find them later, and feel encouraged.

I hate writing. I love having written.
--Dorothy Parker

A writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.
--Thomas Mann

I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.
--Douglas Adams

Planning to write is not writing. Outlining…researching…talking to people about what you're doing, none of that is writing. Writing is writing.
--E.L. Doctorow

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

There are three rules for writing the novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.
Somerset Maugham

Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don't give up.
--Anne Lamott

You fail only if you stop writing.
--Ray Bradbury

Writing is an adventure.
--Winston Churchill