Writing Quotes

You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write.

A novel is balanced between a few true impressions and the multitude of false ones that make up most of what we call life.

I discovered that rejections are not altogether a bad thing. They teach a writer to rely on his own judgment and to say in his heart of hearts, 'To hell with you.'

I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence.

I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence.

Journalism largely consists of saying 'Lord Jones is Dead' to people who never knew that Lord Jones was alive.

Journalism largely consists of saying 'Lord Jones is Dead' to people who never knew that Lord Jones was alive.

If any man wish to write in a clear style, let him be first clear in his thoughts; and if any would write in a noble style, let him first possess a noble soul.

To write a good love letter, you ought to begin without knowing what you mean to say and to finish without knowing what you have written.

Every author should weigh his work and ask, 'Will humanity gain any benefit from it?'

An editor is someone who separates the wheat from the chaff and then prints the chaff.

There are laws to protect the freedom of the press's speech, but none that are worth anything to protect the people from the press.

The writer�s job is not to judge, but to seek to understand.

To write history one must be more than a man, since the author who holds the pen of this great justiciary must be free from all preoccupation of interest or vanity.

A good many young writers make the mistake of enclosing a stamped, self-addressed envelope, big enough for the manuscript to come back in. This is too much of a temptation to the editor.

We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true.

Journalism is literature in a hurry.

The art of writing is the art of discovering what you believe.

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

The only right way of telling a story is to begin at the beginning--at the beginning of the world. Therefore all books have to be begun in the wrong way for the sake of brevity.