Writing Quotes
Writing quotes are a great way to learn how to write fiction.
I take pride in providing writers with the best literary advice available - both on this website and in my e-book: The Ultimate Guide to Novel Writing. But you can't beat hearing words of wisdom straight from the horse's mouth, so to speak.
There are 2 ways for you to access some of the greatest literary quotes of all time...
First, you will find that the articles in my 400-page e-book - The Ultimate Guide to Novel Writing - are illustrated with even more writing quotations than you will find here on the website. These truly bring the articles to life.
Second, there is a bonus section at the end of the Ultimate Guide devoted to nothing but inspirational quotes about writing.
(This information is incorrect. I need to update this page. Sorry for the bother.)
This bonus section is called Writers On Writing, and each of the ten articles takes an in-depth and fascinating look into the minds of some of the true literary greats.
To give you a taste, here are just a few writing quotes from the "Writers On Writing" section...
"Today is a dawdly day. They seem to alternate. I do a whole of a day's work and then the next day, flushed with triumph, I dawdle. That's today. The crazy thing is that I get about the same number of words down either way."
- John Steinbeck"It's true that it's a solitary occupation, but you would be surprised at how much companionship a group of imaginary characters can offer once you get to know them."
- Anne Tyler"I identify very strongly with the idea that you’re in your early 30s and you’ve got no idea whether this is going to pay off or not – the writing thing – and if it doesn’t, what are you going to do? You’ve told everybody that is what you’re trying, and it feels that you’re walking a plank and you’ve just got to keep going because there’s a load of people waving cutlasses at you!"
- Nick Hornby"We all have days of near despair, but we are compensated for them by the days when each scene sings on."
- P. D. James"It’s always a part of my purpose as a storyteller to first create characters that the reader will be anxious for. You can’t be anxious for a character if you don’t care about the character, if you don’t in some way like, respect, or even love the character, or at least have affection for the character. And then, once I’ve established those characters, in whom the reader I hope has some emotional investment, then it’s perversely my job to make as many terrible things happen to those people we like as I can imagine."
- John Irving
Want to be inspired by hundreds of writing quotes just like those?
