Writing Quotes

Photo by Lauren Mann

As my writing journey has progressed through time, I have collected quotes from books about the craft, from editor and author interviews, from newsletters for writers, and the like. Some have caused me to pause and re-think the writing process. Others have encouraged me to persevere when the rejections come. While yet others are just plain fun. So, I've decided to share them here with you. 


          What say you about these quotes? What writing quotes have you enjoyed?

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What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.
              Samuel Johnson

Only paper flowers are afraid of the rain. We are not afraid of the noble rain of criticism because with it will flourish the magnificent garden of music.
       Konstantin Dankevich

Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart. 
       William Wordsworth

Tight writing makes its point... It is the difference between hitting with a pillow and hitting with a baseball bat.
           William Brohaugh 

A book should be an ice-axe to break the frozen sea within us.
                    Franz Kafka

All good writing is swimming under water and holding your breath.
             F. Scott Fitzgerald

“And what is the use of a book,” thought Alice, “without pictures or conversation?”
        Lewis Carroll, Alice in         Wonderland

Poetry is the journal of a sea animal living on land, wanting to fly in the sky. 
                 Carl Sandburg

I believe character and plot and setting and language—on a slant—is what readers thirst for. They are intrigued with what is odd, aberrant, offbeat, strange…
            Patricia Lee Gauch

The adjective is the banana peel of the parts of speech
               Clifton Fadiman

All words are pegs to hang ideas on.  
        Henry Ward Beecher

Every novel should have a beginning, a muddle, and an end.
                  Peter DeVries

Rejections are stones that pave the road to sales.
                      Mel Boring

Nouns are the bones that give a sentence body. But verbs are the muscles that make it go. 
                   Mervin Block

Writing for children is like a perfect dive off the high platform—lean, neat, an arrow piercing the water.
                Heather Sellers

It's hard to be in this business long without getting some serious ouch moments—but…when the pain comes, don't let it whisper to you that you're a loser. Yell at the rejection letters.  Kick the couch.  Don't give up.
                       Jan Fields

A plot is the web we weave to snare the reader and lead him exactly where we want him to go—to the heart of the story and out again.
            Marileta Robinson

Great books come alive. They breathe. They lament. They stand up and cheer…The heart of a really good book beats.
           Patricia Lee Gauch 

Your work is only as good as your concentra… Hey look! A cloud shaped like Snoopy! 
                 Martell Stroup


Good prose is like a windowpane. 
                 George Orwell

Tell us the details…Pay tribute to all the everyday & extraordinary things…
              Natalie Goldberg