We all need it sometimes. A little extra dose of motivation. That gentle nudge to get us back on track and help us focus again. But if you are a writer, you might need it more often. Especially when you’re struggling to overcome writer’s block or days of self-doubt when you want to start writing with confidence again. It’s in times like these that I find ‘writing quotes’ to be a real motivation booster.
Research shows that reading motivational quotes helps people improve their self-esteem.
In this post, I’ll share some of my favourite quotes about writing that have inspired me, kept me grounded and reminded me why I started writing in the first place. I hope these writing quotes will inspire you too to write more and write better!
Writing Quotes to Inspire You
“Writing is the only thing that when I do it, I don’t feel I should be doing something else.” ~ Gloria Steinem
“Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers.” ~ Issac Asimov
“A professional writer is an amateur who didn’t quit.” ~ Richard Bach
“It is perfectly okay to write garbage — as long as you edit brilliantly.” ~ C. J. Cherryh
“Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.” ~ Stephen King
“Start before you’re ready.” ~ Steven Pressfield
“I write only when inspiration strikes. Fortunately, it strikes every morning at nine o’clock sharp.” ~ W. Somerset Maugham
“Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.” ~ Anton Chekhov
“Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on.” ~ Louise L’Amour
“Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” ~ E. L. Doctorow
“If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it. Or, if proper usage gets in the way, it may have to go. I can’t allow what we learned in English composition to disrupt the sound and rhythm of the narrative.” ~ Elmore Leonard
“If writing seems hard, it’s because it is hard. It’s one of the hardest things people do.” ~ William Zinsser
“Find your best time of the day for writing and write. Don’t let anything else interfere. Afterwards it won’t matter to you that the kitchen is a mess.” ~ Esther Freud
“You can always edit a bad page. You can’t edit a blank page.” ~ Jodi Picoult
“If I waited for perfection, I would never write a word.” ~ Margaret Atwood
It’s none of their business that you have to learn to write. Let them think you were born that way.” ~ Ernest Hemingway
“[Be] willing to write really badly.” ~ Jennifer Egan
“The difference between the almost right word and the right word is … the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.” ~ Mark Twain
“You can’t think yourself out of a writing block; you have to write yourself out of a thinking block.” ~ John Rogers
“Done is better than perfect.” ~ Sheryl Sandberg
“The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.” ~ Sylvia Plath
“It’s no secret that the best place to write, in my opinion, is in a café. You don’t have to make your own coffee, you don’t have to feel like you’re in solitary confinement and if you have writers block, you can get up and walk to the next café while giving your batteries time to recharge and brain time to think.” ~ J. K. Rowling
Don’t get it right, just get it written.” ~ James Thurber
“Being a writer is a very peculiar sort of job: It’s always you versus a blank sheet of paper (or a blank screen) and quite often the blank piece of paper wins.” ~ Neil Gaiman
“A word after a word after a word is power.” ~ Margaret Atwood
“I don’t need an alarm clock. My ideas wake me.” ~ Ray Bradbury, WD
“Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing about.” ~ Benjamin Franklin
“If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” ~ Toni Morrison
“A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.” ~ Thomas Mann
“A writer who waits for ideal conditions under which to work will die without putting a word on paper.” ~ E. B. White
“I can’t write without a reader. It’s precisely like a kiss—you can’t do it alone.” ~ John Cheever
“Good writing is clear thinking made visible.” ~ William Wheeler
“[You write out of the] desire to seem clever, to be talked about, to be remembered after death, etc., etc., etc. It is humbug to pretend this is not a motive and a strong one.” ~ George Orwell
“Write. Rewrite. When not writing or rewriting, read. I know of no shortcuts.”
~ Larry L. King, WD
“One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple.” ~ Jack Kerouac
“Writing is talking, except you get the chance to edit what you just said.” ~ Bangambiki Habyarimana
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” ~ Aristotle
“Make it simple. Make it memorable. Make it inviting to look at. Make it fun to read.” ~ Leo Burnett
“One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple.” ~ Jack Kerouac
“Anything you write is, at its core, selling something. Maybe that something is a product or service. Maybe it’s you.” ~ Kira Hug
“You fail only if you stop writing.” ~ Ray Bradbury
“Being a good writer is 3% talent, 97% not being distracted by the Internet.” ~ Anonymous
“Imagination is like a muscle. I found out that the more I wrote, the bigger it got.” ~ Philip José Farmer
“This is how you do it: you sit down at the keyboard, and you put one word after another until its done. It’s that easy, and that hard.” ~ Neil Gaiman
“Copywriting is using words to persuade people to take some kind of action, such as clicking on an ad or purchasing a product. For this reason, it’s one of the most important aspects of marketing. It’s also why professional copywriters are the highest-paid writers on the planet.” ~ John McIntyre
“If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.” ~ Stephen King
“You don’t start out writing good stuff. You start out writing crap and thinking it’s good stuff, and then gradually you get better at it. That’s why I say one of the most valuable traits is persistence.” ~ Octavia E. Butler
“The desire to write grows with writing.” ~ Desiderius Erasmus
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” ~ Aristotle
“If you write one story, it may be bad; if you write a hundred, you have the odds in your favor.” ~ Edgar Rice Burroughs
“Make it simple. Make it memorable. Make it inviting to look at. Make it fun to read.” ~ Leo Burnett
This completes my list of 50+ writing quotes!
What are your favourite quotes about writing from the list above? Spotted an error or got reminded of your favourite writing quote?
Tell me about it in the comments section below and I’ll be happy to add it to this list.
Who knows, it might just inspire someone to start writing or continue writing 🙂
