100+ Famous Writers' Quotes on Writing to Inspire Every Creator

"You must write every single day of your life." — Ray Bradbury

"Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration; the rest of us just get up and go to work." — Stephen King

"I write only when inspiration strikes. Fortunately, it strikes every morning at nine o'clock sharp." — W. Somerset Maugham

"A professional writer is an amateur who didn’t quit." — Richard Bach

"Writing is not something you do on weekends. It’s what you live for." — Joyce Carol Oates

"Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on." — Louis L’Amour

"I can't write without a drink, but then again, I can't write with one." — Dorothy Parker

"The muse visits during the act of creation, not before." — Octavia Butler

"You don't need to have talent to write every day. You just need stubbornness." — Jodi Picoult

"Quantity produces quality. If you only write when you’re inspired, you’re not going to write much." — Ray Bradbury

"Establish a daily routine. Your mind will rebel at first, but it will adapt." — Haruki Murakami

"I write when I’m afraid, when I’m sad, when I’m angry. That’s the job." — Isabel Allende

"The scariest moment is always just before you start." — Stephen King

"Write drunk, edit sober." — Ernest Hemingway

"You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club." — Jack London

"The first draft is just you telling yourself the story." — Terry Pratchett

"Don’t think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity." — Ray Bradbury

"The blank page is not your enemy. It’s your invitation." — Neil Gaiman

"Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor." — Anne Lamott

"If you can’t think of anything to write, write about not being able to think of anything." — Jerry Seinfeld

"Just start. The rest will follow." — Margaret Atwood

"Write badly. Write terribly. Just write." — Natalie Goldberg

"Creativity is a wild mind and a disciplined eye." — Dorothy Boyle

"Your inner critic is lying. Keep typing anyway." — Cheryl Strayed

"Brevity is the soul of wit." — William Shakespeare

"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication." — Leonardo da Vinci

"Kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart." — William Faulkner

"The more you leave out, the more you include." — Elmore Leonard

"Easy reading is damn hard writing." — Nathaniel Hawthorne

"Omit needless words." — Strunk & White

"To be simple is to be great." — Ralph Waldo Emerson

"The simplest words are the most profound." — Paulo Coelho

"Truth is best expressed in few words." — Seneca

"Great thoughts are always simple." — Leo Tolstoy

"Say what you mean. Mean what you say." — Mark Twain

"Clarity is the ultimate elegance." — Unknown

"I write to find out what I think." — Joan Didion

"We write to taste life twice: in the moment and in retrospection." — Anaïs Nin

"In writing, you discover who you are, who you’ve been, and who you might become." — Julia Cameron

"The act of writing is the act of discovering what you believe." — David Hare

"I write to give voice to the silence within me." — Audre Lorde

"Writing is an exploration. You start from nothing and learn as you go." — E.L. Doctorow

"I don’t know what I think until I write it down." — Gloria Steinem

"Through writing, we excavate our own souls." — Clarissa Pinkola Estés

"The page doesn’t lie. It shows you exactly who you are." — Lidia Yuknavitch

"Writing is how I pray. How I understand. How I survive." — Anne Lamott

"Every word I write brings me closer to myself." — Rainer Maria Rilke

"To write is to become intimate with your deepest truths." — Elizabeth Gilbert

"There is no greater courage than publishing honesty." — Henry David Thoreau

"The truth may be buried, but it never dies." — Toni Morrison

"When you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything." — Mark Twain

"Dare to disturb the universe." — E.E. Cummings

"If you don’t risk anything, you risk everything." — Erica Jong

"All literature is protest. You can’t name a single piece that isn’t." — James Baldwin

"Write what should not be forgotten." — Isabel Allende

"Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom." — Thomas Jefferson

"Speak your mind, even if your voice shakes." — Maggie Kuhn

"The writer’s duty is to tell the truth, even when it hurts." — George Orwell

"Courage is writing the sentence you're afraid to read." — Cheryl Strayed

"Truth is not always beauty, but it is always necessary." — bell hooks

"Imagination is more important than knowledge." — Albert Einstein

"Fiction reveals truths that reality obscures." — Jessamyn West

"A story is a way to say something that can’t be said directly." — Barbara Kingsolver

"The function of fiction is to make sense of chaos." — John Gardner

"Fantasy is hardly an escape from reality. It’s a way of understanding it." — Lloyd Alexander

"Create the world you want to see." — Neil Gaiman

"Stories are the shadows of truth." — Ursula K. Le Guin

"The imagination is the workshop of the mind." — George Bernard Shaw

"What if? That’s the most powerful question in fiction." — Roald Dahl

"Inventing a character is like meeting a stranger who tells you their secrets." — Zadie Smith

"Magic exists because believing in magic makes it real." — Lev Grossman

"Every great story began as a whisper in the dark." — Patrick Rothfuss

"Writing is rewriting." — Vonnegut

"The art of writing is the art of applying the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair." — Mary Heaton Vorse

"You can always edit a bad page. You can’t edit a blank page." — Jodi Picoult

"The first draft is just you vomiting on the page. Then you clean it up." — Neil Gaiman

"Editing is where the magic happens." — Sol Stein

"Kill your darlings, but do it with love." — Stephen King

"Revising means seeing again with fresh eyes." — Janice Hardy

"No one writes well the first time. Not even Hemingway." — F. Scott Fitzgerald

"Good writing is the result of multiple passes." — William Zinsser

"Edit with a scalpel, not a machete." — Unknown

"Cut everything that isn’t essential. Then cut some more." — Elmore Leonard

"The difference between good and great is in the edit." — Unknown

"Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working." — Pablo Picasso

"Creativity takes courage." — Henri Matisse

"You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have." — Maya Angelou

"Originality is simply a fresh pair of eyes." — Woodrow Wilson

"An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea." — Oscar Wilde

"Don’t wait for the lightning bolt. Become the storm." — Viola Davis

"Creativity is intelligence having fun." — Albert Einstein

"The world always seems brighter when you've just made something that wasn't there before." — Neil Gaiman

"Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen." — John Steinbeck

"You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to invite it in." — Lillian Hellman

"Create something that helps people feel less alone." — Lin-Manuel Miranda

"Art begins in imitation and ends in innovation." — Charles Horton Cooley

"Writing is an act of faith, not a trick of grammar." — E.B. White

"We write to affirm life, not escape it." — Henry Miller

"The purpose of writing is to offer meaning in a meaningless world." — Albert Camus

"Words can change the world." — Margaret Atwood

"To write is to leave a mark so the world knows you were here." — Dave Eggers

"Literature is the memory of humanity." — Umberto Eco

"A story is a whisper across time." — Madeleine L’Engle

"We write to connect, to heal, to witness." — Ocean Vuong

"The role of the writer is to make revolution irresistible." — Alice Walker

"Books are mirrors: you only see in them what you already have inside you." — Carlos Ruiz Zafón

"Writing is not a career. It’s a calling." — Marilynne Robinson

"Every story is a lifeline to someone." — Tahereh Mafi

"Every ‘no’ brings me closer to a ‘yes.’" — Victoria Schwab

"Doubt is a part of the process. So is persistence." — J.K. Rowling

"I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work." — Thomas Edison

"Rejection is not the end. It’s redirection." — Rupi Kaur

"The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you realize why." — Mark Twain

"If you hear a voice within you say ‘you cannot paint,’ then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced." — Vincent van Gogh

"Success is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm." — Winston Churchill

"You don’t have to be confident to begin. You begin to be confident by doing." — Susan Jeffers

"The fear doesn’t go away. You just keep writing anyway." — Neil Gaiman

"It’s okay to write badly. It’s not okay to quit." — John Green

"You are not a fraud. You are learning in public." — Brené Brown

"Keep going. Your breakthrough is hidden in your next paragraph." — Alex Elle