by Jeffrey Jason Hill

Created on: June 06, 2009   Last Updated: June 10, 2009

Quotes on writing are as varied as they are insightful. A good quote on writing packs more in a few words than most of us say in a thousand. If I had to choose one indispensable quotation, I guess it would be William Faulkner's entire Nobel Prize acceptance speech in 1950. I rather suspect I am not alone in that sentiment. On the other hand, the best quotes on writing I know not only come from obscure names, but are unlikely to be seen in most other compilations. You won't come across any quotes from Lord Byron here. Many of these are diamonds in the rough. I have separated them into unique categories.

THE WRITING PROCESS

As soon as you connect with your true subject, you will write. - Joyce Carol Oates

There are few experiences quite so satisfactory as getting a good idea.....You're pleased with it and feel good. It may not be right, but at least you can try it out.-Lancelot L. White

The faster I write the better my output. If I'm going slow, I'm in trouble. It means I'm pushing the words, instead of being pulled by them.-Raymond Chandler

It's never perfect when I write it down the first time, or the second time, or the fifth time. But it always gets better as I go over it and over it.-Jane Yolen

No iron can pierce the heart with such force as a period put just at the right place.-Isaac Babel

Writing becomes real when it has an audience.-Tom Liner

THE BASIC ELEMENTS OF WRITING

Easy writing makes hard reading.-Ernest Hemingway

A writer is not someone who expresses his thoughts, his passion, or his imagination in sentences but someone who thinks sentences.-Roland Barthes

If any man wishes to write in a clear style, let him first be clear in his thoughts.-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The paragraph [is] a mini-essay; it is also a maxi-sentence.-Donald Hall

I love being a writer. What I can't stand is the paperwork.-Peter De Vries

SEARCHING AND RESEARCHING

Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it.-Samuel Johnson

Research is to see what everybody else has seen, and to think what nobody else has thought.-Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

Everyone has a right to an opinion, but no one has a right to be wrong about the facts.-Anonymous

Adam was the only man who, when he said a good thing, knew that nobody had said it before him.-Mark Twain

FORMS OF WRITING

Personal Writing

Be yourself. Above all, let who you are, what you are, what you believe shine through every sentence you write, every piece

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>