THE WRITER’S QUOTE BOOK
WRITERS & WRITING
“A writer is a person for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.”
-Thomas Mann
“The reason one writes isn’t the fact he wants to say something. He writes because he has something to say.”
-F. Scott Fitzgerald
“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”
-Ernest Hemingway
“Easy reading is damned hard writing.”
-Anonymous
“Writing is the hardest way of earning a living, with the possible exception of wrestling alligators.”
-Olin Miller
HARD WORK
“You can’t say, I won’t write today because that excuse will extend into several days, then several months, then… you are not a writer anymore, just someone who dreams about being a writer.”
-Dorothy C. Fontana
“Hard work beats talent when talent isn’t willing to work hard.”
-Tim Notke
“Writing is the hardest work in the world. I have been a bricklayer and a truck driver, and I tell you – as if you haven’t been told a million times already – that writing is harder. Lonelier. And nobler and more enriching.”
-Harlan Ellison
“I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.”
-Thomas Jefferson
“Genius is seldom recognized for what it is: a great capacity for hard work.”
– Henry Ford
FAILURE & SUCCESS
“I missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot… and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why — I succeed.”
-Michael Jordan
“Success is sometimes a series of failures, held together by a strong strand of determination and persistence.”
-Anyonymous
“Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.”
– Sir Winston Churchill
“Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”
-Thomas Edison
“It is a rough road that leads to the heights of greatness.”
– Seneca
PASSION
“We do not write because we want to; we write because we have to.”
-Somerset Maugham
“When you’re following your energy and doing what you want all the time, the distinction between work and play dissolves.”
-Shakti Gawain
“There’s only one reason to become a screenwriter, or a writer of anything, and that is you can’t avoid it. It’s what you love to do. It’s who you are. I write because there’s no way I couldn’t write.”
-Ron Bass
“Writing is its own reward.”
-Henry Miller
“I’d rather be a failure at something I love than a success at something I hate.”
-George Burns
CREATIVITY & IMAGINATION
“Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.”
-Albert Einstein
“Some men see things as they are and ask why. Others dream things that never were and ask why not.”
-George Bernard Shaw
“There are no rules in writing. There are useful principles. Throw them away when they’re not useful. But always know what you’re throwing away.”
-Will Shetterly
“Everybody walks past a thousand story ideas every day. The good writers are the ones who see five or six of them. Most people don’t see any.”
-Orson Scott Card
“According to aerodynamic laws, the bumblebee cannot fly. Its body weight is not the right proportion to its wingspan. Ignoring these laws, the bee flies anyway.”
-M. Sainte-Lague
PERSISTENCE
“Achievement seems to be connected with action. Successful men and women keep moving. They make mistakes, but they don’t quit.”
– Conrad Hilton
“Victory belongs to the most persevering.”
– Napoleon Bonaparte
”An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made in a narrow field.”
– Niels Bohr
“A man is not finished when he is defeated. He is finished when he quits.”
– Richard Nixon
“The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.”
– Nelson Mandela
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