65 Quotes for Writers to Inspire Your Best Work Yet

You’ve landed on a curated collection of 65 inspiring writing quotes. Whether you need tips on craft and creative inspiration or reminders to tap into courage and patience, find motivation to keep writing.

Unlike a lot of websites packed with quotes for writers, each one you find on this page links to a post with attribution and citations so you can trace it back to its original source. Browse these to inspire your best work yet.

Ausonius

“Begin, for half the deed is in beginning;
Begin the other half, and you will finish.” (Ausonius)

Baldwin, James

“The importance of a writer is continuous…His importance, I think, is that he is here to describe things which other people are too busy to describe.” (James Baldwin, Nobody Knows My Name)

Boorstin, Daniel

“I write to discover what I think.” (Daniel Boorstin)

Bradbury, Ray

“[I]f you are writing without zest, without gusto, without love, without fun, you are only half a writer.” (Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing)

“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, Zen in the Art of Writing)

Brande, Dorothea

“[S]et…a short period each day when you will, by taking thought, recapture a childlike “innocence of eye.” For half an hour each day transport yourself back to the state of wide-eyed interest that was yours at the age of five. Even though you feel a little self-conscious about doing something so deliberately that was once as unnoticed as breathing, you will still find that you are able to gather stores of new material in a short time.” (Dorothea Brande, Becoming a Writer)

“Writing calls on unused muscles and involves solitude and immobility. There is not much to be said for the recommendation, so often heard, to serve an apprenticeship to journalism if you intend to write fiction. But a journalist’s career does teach two lessons which every writer needs to learn—that it is possible to write for long periods without fatigue, and that if one pushes on past the first weariness one finds a reservoir of unsuspected energy—one reaches the famous ‘second wind.'” (Dorothea Brande, Becoming a Writer)

Cameron, Julia

“Sometimes we do not know we have a writing voice because there has never been anyone to listen. When we begin to listen to ourselves, the inner voice grows stronger. Soon others can hear it as well.” (Julia Cameron, The Right to Write)

Cather, Willa

“I think that most of the basic material a writer works with is acquired before the age of fifteen. That’s the important period: when one’s not writing. Those years determine whether one’s work will be poor and thin or rich and fine.” (Willa Cather)

Chambers, Oswald

“The author or speaker from whom you learn the most is not the one who teaches you something you didn’t know before, but the one who helps you take a truth with which you have quietly struggled, give it expression, and speak it clearly and boldly.” (Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest)

Conroy, Pat

“My well-used dictionaries and thesauri sing out to me when I write, and all English words are the plainsong of my many-tongued, long-winded ancestors who spoke before me.” (Pat Conroy, Why I Write)

Curie, Marie (Madame)

“Be less curious about people and more curious about ideas.” (Marie Curie)

DeSalvo, Louise

“In working with writers, I’ve learned it’s not talent that gets books written, it’s hard, slow, steady work. But it’s not only hard work—almost every student I’ve taught works hard. It’s learning to understand that the process of writing isn’t linear but filled with peaks and valleys; that sometimes we don’t know what we’re doing but we need to work anyway; that we must stay…we must have tenacity when we feel like walking away from a project.” (Louise DeSalvo, The Art of Slow Writing)

“I believe that our own work will flourish if we find the support we need, but also if we consistently help other writers throughout our writing lives. And not only because we can then count on a coterie of people to give us help when we need it, but also because if we’re not generous to others, we can’t possibly be generous to ourselves.” (Louise DeSalvo, The Art of Slow Writing)

“Beginning—and even accomplished—writers often expect to complete an essay in a few weeks, a book in a year…Yet the best writing grows by accretion, over time…Taking time prevents us from writing knee-jerk responses to challenging material. It encourages us to reflect upon, and express, the complexity of our subjects. It allows us to understand that creating fine work can only be achieved by a slow, consistent dedication to our craft.” (Louise DeSalvo, The Art of Slow Writing)

“It takes daily, deliberate practice to become a proficient writer.” (Louise DeSalvo, The Art of Slow Writing)

Didion, Joan

“I write entirely to find out what is on my mind, what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I’m seeing, and what it means.” (Joan Didion)

Elbow, Peter

“Writing without voice is wooden or dead because it lacks sound, rhythm, energy, and individuality.” (Peter Elbow, Writing with Power)

Frost, Robert

“No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader.” (Robert Frost, The Paris Review)

Godin, Seth

“Just write poorly. Continue to write poorly, in public, until you can write better. I believe that everyone should write in public. Get a blog. Or use…a microblogging site. Use an alias if you like. Turn off comments, certainly—you don’t need more criticism, you need more writing…If you know you have to write something every single day, even a paragraph, you will improve your writing. If you’re concerned with quality, of course, then not writing is not a problem, because zero is perfect and without defects. Shipping nothing is safe.” (Seth Godin)

Haley, Alex

“Every death is like the burning of a library.” (Alex Haley)

Karr, Mary

“[E]verybody I know who wades deep enough into memory’s waters drowns a little” (Mary Karr, The Art of Memoir)

“[A] single image can split open the hard seed of the past and soon memory pours forth from every direction, sprouting its vines and flowers up around you till the old garden’s taken shape in all its fragrant glory” (Mary Karr, The Art of Memoir)

“[E]ven the best minds warp and blur what they see…For all of memory’s power to yank us back into an overwhelming past, it can also fail big time” (Mary Karr, The Art of Memoir)

Keyes, Ralph

“The trail of literary history is littered with those who fell along the way because the anxiety of trying to write paralyzed their hand.” (Ralph Keyes, The Courage to Write)

“Melville admired most the writers he called “divers,” those who dared to plunge deep inside and report what they found. Frederick Busch thought this need for inner exploration was what made novel-writing so daring. “You go to dark places so that you can get there, steal the trophy and get out.” (Ralph Keyes, The Courage to Write)

“All writers must confront their fears eventually. The sooner they do this, the better their work will be.” (Ralph Keyes, The Courage to Write)

“Working writers aren’t those who have eliminated their anxiety. They are the ones who keep scribbling while their heart races and their stomach churns, and who mail manuscripts with trembling fingers…. They learn how to keep writing even as fear tries to yank their hand from the page.” (Ralph Keyes, The Courage to Write)

“Writing is both frightening and exhilarating. It couldn’t be one without the other. The best writers … convert anxiety into enthusiasm and an unparalleled source of energy.” (Ralph Keyes, The Courage to Write)

King, Stephen

“If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There’s no way around these two things that I’m aware of, no shortcut.” (Stephen King, On Writing)

“Reading is the creative center of a writer’s life.” (Stephen King, On Writing)

Lamott, Anne

“[I]f you are writing the clearest, truest words you can find and doing the best you can to understand and communicate, this will shine on paper like its own little lighthouse.” (Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird)

“You cannot write out of someone else’s big dark place; you can only write out of your own.” (Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird)

“We write to expose the unexposed. If there is one door in the castle you have been told not to go through, you must…Most human beings are dedicated to keeping that one door shut. But the writer’s job is to see what’s behind it, to see the bleak unspeakable stuff, and to turn the unspeakable into words—not just into any words but if we can, into rhythm and blues. You can’t do this without discovering your true voice.” (Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird)

Le Guin, Ursula K.

“I recommend to all storytellers a watchful attitude and a thoughtful, careful choice of adjectives and adverbs, because the bakery shop of English is rich beyond belief, and narrative prose, particularly if it’s going a long distance, needs more muscle than fat.” (Ursula K. Le Guin, Steering the Craft)

“Adjectives and adverbs are rich and good and fattening. The main thing is not to overindulge. (Ursula K. Le Guin, Steering the Craft)

“People who don’t worry at least a little about semicolons aren’t likely to be writers.” (Ursula K. Le Guin, Steering the Craft)

“Prose writers are interested mostly in life and commas.” (Ursula K. Le Guin, Steering the Craft)

“[G]ood writers train their mind’s ear to listen to their own prose—to hear as they write.” (Ursula K. Le Guin, Steering the Craft)

Lerner, Betsy

“If you are struggling with what you should be writing, look at your scraps. Encoded there are the themes and subjects that you should be grappling with as a writer.” (Betsy Lerner, The Forest for the Trees)

Lish, Gordon

“The secret of good writing is telling the truth.” (Gordon Lish, Dick Cavett television interview, Aug. 25, 1991)

Lynch, Kevin

“Never go to bed until you have a story to tell.” (Kevin Lynch)

“If someone asks, ‘How was your day?’ and you don’t have a story to tell them, go create one.” (Kevin Lynch)

Lynch, Thomas

“Witness and keep track. That’s the basic work of writers.” (Thomas Lynch)

Murray, Donald

“The material for writing is in your head. It will be recovered, relived, understood, and shared through writing.” (Donald Murray, Write to Learn)

“One of the principal reasons that writers write is to relive life.” (Donald Murray, Write to Learn)

“Writing is also rethinking. When we write a personal experience we re-experience it and have the opportunity to give it a shape and meaning that may not have been apparent the first time around.” (Donald Murray, Write to Learn)

Nin, Anaïs

“We write to heighten our own awareness of life. We write to lure and enchant and console others. We write to serenade our lovers. We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospection.” (Anaïs Nin, The Diary of Anais Nin)

O’Connor, Flannery

“Anybody who has survived his childhood has enough information about life to last him the rest of his days” (Flannery O’Connor, Mystery and Manners)

Patchett, Ann

“Writing is a miserable, awful business. Stay with it. It is better than anything in the world.” (Ann Patchett, This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage)

Pipher, Mary

“Language imparts identity, meaning, and perspective to our human community. Writers are either polluters or part of the clean-up team. Just as the language of power and greed has the potential to destroy us the language of reason and empathy has the power to save us. Writers can inspire a kinder, fairer, more beautiful world, or incite selfishness, stereotyping, and violence. Writers can unite people or divide them.” (Mary Pipher, Writing to Change the World)

Roorbach, Bill

One of the many curious things about the act of writing is the way it can give access to the unconscious mind. And in the hidden parts of consciousness lie not only hobgoblins and neurotic glimmers, but lots of regular stuff, the everyday stuff of memory. The invisible face of your grade school bully is in there, somewhere, and the exact smell of the flowers on vines in your grandma’s backyard, along with most everything else. (Bill Roorbach, Writing Life Stories)

Roosevelt, Eleanor

“This part of learning—learning as you go—gives life its salt. And this, too, comes back primarily to interest. You must be interested in anything that comes your way.” (Eleanor Roosevelt, You Learn by Living)

“None of us can afford to stop learning or to check our curiosity about new things, or to lose our humility in the face of new situations.” (Eleanor Roosevelt, You Learn by Living)

“If you can develop this ability to see what you look at, to understand its meaning, to readjust your knowledge to this new information, you can continue to learn and to grow as long as you live and you’ll have a wonderful time doing it.” (Eleanor Roosevelt, You Learn by Living)

Saint Thierry, William of

“A man who has lost his sense of wonder is a man dead.” (William of Saint Thierry)

Shapiro, Dani

“I write in order to discover what I don’t yet know.” (Dani Shapiro)

Tharp, Twyla

“We want our artists to take the mundane materials of our lives, run it through their imaginations, and surprise us.” (Twyla Tharp, The Creative Habit)

Vaughn, Ruth

“I am convinced that writing creatively is a beautiful and rewarding experience for discovering one’s self. For writing is one of the most forceful ways of learning, perceiving, maturing, expanding.” (Ruth Vaughn, Write to Discover Yourself)

Welty, Eudora

“Writing fiction has developed in me an abiding respect for the unknown in a human lifetime and a sense of where to look for the threads, how to follow, how to connect, find in the thick of the tangle what clear line persists. The strands are all there: to the memory nothing is ever really lost.” (Eudora Welty, One Writer’s Beginnings)

“I am a writer who came of a sheltered life. A sheltered life can be a daring life as well. For all serious daring starts from within.” (Eudora Welty, One Writer’s Beginnings)

“The memory is a living thing—it too is in transit. But during its moment, all that is remembered joins, and lives—the old and the young, the past and the present, the living and the dead.” (Eudora Welty, One Writer’s Beginnings)

[T]he greatest confluence of all is that which makes up the human memory—the individual human memory. My own is the treasure most dearly regarded by me, in my life and in my work as a writer. Here time, also, is subject to confluence. The memory is a living thing—it too is in transit. But during its moment, all that is remembered joins, and lives—the old and the young, the past and the present, the living and the dead. (Eudora Welty, One Writer’s Beginnings)

White, E. B.

“A poem compresses much in a small space and adds music, thus heightening its meaning.” (E. B. White, Essays of E.B. White)

“[C]reation is in part merely the business of forgoing the great and small distractions.” (E. B. White, Essays of E.B. White)

Bookmark this page next time you need a creative nudge or writing inspiration.

Further Reading:

• Quotes for Writers Category on this website
• Want to Be a Better Writer? Journal Before You Write (interview with Jennifer Dukes Lee)
• How to Compose the Perfect First Draft (includes quotes from Barbara Kingsolver, Anne Lamott, Jane Smiley)