40 Great Quotes About Writing From Famous Writers

There's a lot to learn from famous writers, and Lake Eerie Books has compiled a list of forty of their best hot takes. Let's get to it!

1. “The first draft of anything is sh*t” - Ernest Hemingway

2. “Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass” – Anton Chekhov

3. “The biggest part of being a writer is simply sitting down and writing” – Neil Gaiman

4. “Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart” – William Wordsworth

5. "Writing is an exploration. You start from nothing and learn as you go". - E.L Doctorow

6. "Good fiction must be unforgettably imagined, powerfully felt, and -- in some measure -- universal". - Ursula K. Le Guin

7. “Writing is a way of talking without being interrupted” – Jules Renard

8. "Fiction reveals truths that reality obscures". - Ralph Waldo Emerson

9. “Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on” – Louis L’Amour

10. “You don’t write because you want to say something; you write because you have something to say” – F. Scott Fitzgerald

11. "If there's a book you want to read but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it" - Toni Morrison

12. “I am writing to find out who I am” – Katherine Anne Porter

13. “Writing is not a job, it’s a calling” – Stephen King

14. "You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you" - Ray Bradbury

15. "Words can be like X-rays if you use them properly -- they'll go through anything" - Aldous Huxley

16. “The road to hell is paved with works-in-progress” – Philip Roth

17. “No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader” – Robert Frost

18. “The art of writing is the art of discovering what you believe” – Gustave Flaubert

19. "Writing is a struggle against silence" - Carlos Fuentes

20. “A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people” – Thomas Mann

21. “The best way of learning to write is by writing” – George Bernard Shaw

22. “I only write when I am inspired… fortunately I am inspired at 9 o’clock every morning” – William Faulkner

23. “Inspiration usually comes during work, rather than before it” – Madeleine L’Engle

24. “You can make anything by writing” – C.S Lewis

25. “Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader—not the fact that it is raining, but the feeling of being rained upon” – E.L Doctorow

26. “A writer who waits for ideal conditions under which to work will die without putting a word to paper” – E.B White

27. “Words should be weighed not counted” – Unknown

28. “Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness” – George Orwell

29. “The more I write, the better I understand what I think” – Margaret Atwood

30. "The art of writing is the art of discovering what you believe" - Gustave Flaubert

31. “I wrote my first novel because I wanted to read it” - Jhumpa Lahiri

32. "When writing a novel a writer should create living people; people not characters. A character is a caricature" - Ernest Hemingway

33. “Writing isn’t about making money, getting famous, getting dates, getting laid, or making friends. In the end it’s about enriching the lives of those who will read your work, and enriching your own life as well” – Stephen King

34. “Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing about" – Benjamin Franklin

35. "A blank piece of paper is God's way of telling us how hard it is to be God" - Sidney Sheldon

36. "The road to hell is paved with works-in-progress" - Philip Roth

37. “If you do not breathe through writing, if you do not cry out in writing, or sing in writing, then don't write, because our culture has no use for it” – Anais Nin

38. “Writing is an act of faith, not a trick of grammar” – E.B White

39. “The writer must believe that what he is doing is the most important thing in the world. And he must hold to this illusion even when he knows it is not true” – John Steinbeck

40. “Writing is not a profession, but a vocation of unhappiness” – George Orwell