Creativity And Writing Quotes

• First, find out what your hero wants, then just follow him.

  Ray Bradbury

  Hero, Writing, Want

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• I have been successful probably because I have always realized that I knew nothing about writing and have merely tried to tell an interesting story entertainingly.

  Edgar Rice Burroughs

  Writing, Successful, Interesting

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• Anecdotes don't make good stories. Generally I dig down underneath them so far that the story that finally comes out is not what people thought their anecdotes were about.

  Alice Munro

  Writing, People, Anecdotes

  FaceBook post by Alice Munro from Sep 17, 2011

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• You learn by writing short stories. Keep writing short stories. The money's in novels, but writing short stories keeps your writing lean and pointed.

  Larry Niven

  Writing, Stories, Story Writers

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• I am irritated by my own writing. I am like a violinist whose ear is true, but whose fingers refuse to reproduce precisely the sound he hears within.

  Gustave Flaubert

  Funny Life, Writing, Sound

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• A blank piece of paper is God's way of telling us how hard it is to be God.

  Sidney Sheldon

  Writing, Pieces, Paper

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• Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere.

  Anne Lamott

  Writing, Effort, Needs

  Anne Lamott (2007). “Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life”, p.25, Anchor

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• To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme.

  Herman Melville

  Book, Writing, Fleas

  Moby Dick ch. 104 (1851)

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• 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

  Writing, Past, Ideas

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• Great is the art of beginning, but greater is the art of ending.

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

  Goodbye, Art, Business

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow “The Complete Poems of Longfellow”, Library of Alexandria

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• I was working on the proof of one of my poems all the morning, and took out a comma. In the afternoon I put it back again.

  Oscar Wilde

  Morning, Writing, Perfection

  Oscar Wilde (2007). “Epigrams of Oscar Wilde”, p.225, Wordsworth Editions

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• All the words I use in my stories can be found in the dictionary-it's just a matter of arranging them into the right sentences.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Writing, Matter, Story Writers

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• There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written.

  Oscar Wilde

  Book, Reading, Writing

  The Picture of Dorian Gray preface (1891)

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• An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all.

  Oscar Wilde

  Funny, Witty, Writing

  Oscar Wilde (2007). “The Collected Works of Oscar Wilde”, p.1001, Wordsworth Editions

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• If you write one story, it may be bad; if you write a hundred, you have the odds in your favor.

  Edgar Rice Burroughs

  Writing, Odds, Stories

  "King of the Jungle" by John J. Miller, reason.com. August/September 1999.

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• Exercise the writing muscle every day, even if it is only a letter, notes, a title list, a character sketch, a journal entry. Writers are like dancers, like athletes. Without that exercise, the muscles seize up.

  Jane Yolen

  Writing, Athlete, Character

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• Literature is all, or mostly, about sex.

  Anthony Burgess

  Sex, Writing, Literature

  Anthony Burgess (2012). “Little Wilson and Big God”, p.173, Random House

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• Imperfections are not inadequacies; they are reminders that we're all in this together.

  Brené Brown

  Imperfection, Together, Reminders

  Brené Brown (2010). “The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are”, p.76, Simon and Schuster

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• The work never matches the dream of perfection the artist has to start with.

  William Faulkner

  Dream, Writing, Artist

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• Begin with an individual, and before you know it you find that you have created a type; begin with a type, and you find that you have created - nothing.

  F. Scott Fitzgerald

  Writing, Individual, Type

  "The Diamond as Big as the Ritz: And Other Stories".

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• There's no such thing as writer's block. That was invented by people in California who couldn't write.

  Terry Pratchett

  Block, Writing, California

  Interview with SFBC's Joyce Wiley, www.lspace.org. 1996.

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• Everyday we slaughter our finest impulses. That is why we get a heartache when we read the lines written by the hand of a master and recognize them as our own, as the tender shoots which we stifled because we lacked the faith to believe in our own powers, our own criterion of truth and beauty. Everyman, when he gets quiet, when he becomes desperately honest with himself, is capable of uttering profound truths.

  Henry Miller

  Inspirational, Life, Believe

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• You don't have to get it right the first time.

  Barbara Sher

  Time, Firsts, Action

  Barbara Sher (2010). “I Could Do Anything If I Only Knew What It Was: How to Discover What You Really Want and How to Get It”, p.177, Dell

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• Most writers regard the truth as their most valuable possession, and therefore are most economical in its use.

  Mark Twain

  Inspirational, Funny, Writing

  "Bite-Size Twain: Wit and Wisdom from the Literary Legend".

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• Get it down. Take chances. It may be bad, but that's the only way you can do anything really good.

  William Faulkner

  Inspiring, Writing, May

  "A Faulkner perspective: a companion-guide to the limited first edition of the Selected letters of William Faulkner".

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