c2p-cmd/Good-Quotes-Authors huggingface dataset:
I turn sentences around. That’s my life. I write a sentence and then I turn it around. Then I look at it and I turn it around again. Then I have lunch. Then I come back in and write another sentence. Then I have tea and turn the new sentence around. Then I read the two sentences over and turn them both around. Then I lie down on my sofa and think. Then I get up and throw them out and start from the beginning. And if I knock off from this routine for as long as a day, I’m frantic with boredom and a sense of waste. Sundays I have breakfast late and read the papers with Hope. Then we go for a walk in the hills, and I'm haunted by the loss of all that good time. I wake up Sunday mornings and I'm nearly crazy at the prospect of all those unusable hours. I'm restless, I'm bad-tempered, but she's a human being too, you see, so I go. To avoid trouble she makes me leave my watch at home. The result is that I look at my wrist instead. We're walking, she's talking, then I look at my wrist - and that generally does it, if my foul mood hasn't already. She throws in the sponge and we come home. And at home what is there to distinguish Sunday from Thursday? I sit back down at my little Olivetti and start looking at sentences and turning them around. And I ask myself, Why is there no way but this for me to fill my hours?
— Philip Roth
Writing is something you Do and not discuss. Talk is cheap, wishes are free and a fool is included with every purchase. So spend your time wisely.
— Jaime Reed
...being "rather unique" is no more possible than being rather pregnant.
— William Zinsser, On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction
Stephen King started to read comics first, I started to watch films and little reading books...Now everything has changed Stephen King reads books and watch films, I read comics, watch films, read books listen to audiobooks...This are two different stories, you were challanged to open them, good job you open them now but can you try to start a new life??To start by opening a new book??Meeting with new characters??With new writers??With one new book which has a story which you haven't heard??Probably, you aren't still ready!
— Deyth Banger
Most writers sow adjectives almost unconsciously into the soil of their prose to make it more lush and pretty, and the sentences become longer and longer as they fill up with stately elms and frisky kittens and hard-bitten detectives and sleepy lagoons. This is adjective-by-habit - a habit you should get rid of. Not every oak has to be gnarled. The adjective that exists solely as a decoration is a self-indulgence for the writer and a burden for the reader.
— William Zinsser, On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction
Most writers sow adjectives almost unconsciously into the soil of their prose to make it more lush and pretty, and the sentences become longer and longer as they fill up with stately elms and frisky kittens and hard-bitten detectives and sleepy lagoons. This is adjective-by-habit - a habit you should get rid of. Not every oak has to be gnarled. The adjective exists solely as a decoration is a self-indulgence for the writer and a burden for the reader.
— William Zinsser, On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction
Writers were as parasitic, she supposed, as the spore itself.
— Joe Hill, The Fireman
Writers really don't retire, you know. They have to be taken out and shot.
— James Salter
[EM] Forster was the only living writer whom he would have described as his master. In other people’s books he found examples of style which he wanted to imitate and learn from. In Forster he found a key to the whole art of writing. The Zen masters of archery—of whom, in those days, Christopher had never heard—start by teaching you the mental attitude with which you must pick up the bow. A Forster novel taught Christopher the mental attitude with which he must pick up the pen.
— Christopher Isherwood
Great writers teach as well as entertain.
— Beem Weeks
Toni Morrison said, "The function of freedom is to free someone else," and if you are no longer wracked or in bondage to a person or a way of life, tell your story. Risk freeing someone else. Not everyone will be glad that you did. Members of your family and other critics may wish you had kept your secrets. Oh, well, what are you going to do? Get it all down. Let it pour out of you and onto the page. Write an incredibly shitty, self-indulgent, whiny, mewling first draft. Then take out as many of the excesses as you can.
— Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
Trust me. What a phrase. Is it a phrase or an idiom? I was never a wordsmith and I was too far along in life to even attempt to tackle a problem as complicated as words. Do writers struggle as much with words as a painter does with his paint and his brush?“Okay,” it is impossible not to trust a beautiful woman. Even macho noir anti-heroes who talk about staying out of trouble and doin’ nothin’ for nobody always get sucked into intricate snares set for them by beautiful women… I would not be an exception.
— Bruce Crown, How Dim the Promised Land
She had her image… and anything added to that would be mere verse-making. Something might come of it some day. In the meanwhile she had got her mood on to paper—and this is the release that all writers, even the feeblest, seek for as men seek for love; and, having found it, they doze off happily into dreams and trouble their hearts no further.
— Dorothy L. Sayers, Gaudy Night
Don't just write a strong female protagonist. Be one.
— A.D. Posey
Why people become writers??It's logical, they don't have what to do and they are bored and they want to show people a new world. So they create it!Why people watch films??Because they want to feel the taste of the reality!Everything is logical, think before you ask!
— Deyth Banger
The best writers I've read possess oodles of self-doubt, yet claw their way up with each work and remain humble. Boastful ones, not so much.
— Don Roff
She lives the poetry she cannot write
— Larry Wilde
I've never tried to be famous or become a bestseller, just rich and remembered. The rest is a bonus.
— Daniel Marques
As many political writers have pointed out, commitment to political equality is not an empirical claim that people are clones.
— Steven Pinker
Is every writer's keyboard a spill magnet?
— A.D. Posey
Some days you live in pajamas, and your hair kind-of has that Albert Einstein look.
— A.D. Posey, Coffee Chatter
I want to lay under the blanket of sky and laugh while the stars wink and we write our story.
— A.D. Posey
Listen to what the sky is telling you.
— A.D. Posey
Life tells the most beautiful stories.
— A.D. Posey
Your life should always come with hot fudge, whipped cream, and a cherry on top.
— A.D. Posey
Your life is a story. Write the one you want to read.
— A.D. Posey
The best stories are like the best burgers: big, juicy, and messy.
— A.D. Posey
My evolution as a writer? Mother said "stop talking like that", teachers said "you're weird", readers say "best book ever
— Daniel Marques
It's a big world for the idiots. If you're a writer, there are not many cities where you can go and feel normal.
— Daniel Marques
It’s a lesson some writers take a lifetime to learn: what makes us care about things is other people caring, too.
— Garth Risk Hallberg, City on Fire
I chose to be a writer no more than I chose to be female.
— A.D. Posey, Coffee Chatter
Anytime I was denying my inner self, I knew absolutely nothing.
— A.D. Posey
I'm not negative, pessimistic, angry, antisocial or schizophrenic. I'm a writer, and entitled to all that with pride.
— Daniel Marques
Everyone has scars. Cowards conceal them. The brave reveal them.
— A.D. Posey
Fame is neither something to value nor to view as a threat.
— A.D. Posey
Sometimes you just have to hold each other’s hands and walk through it all.
— A.D. Posey
You’re with you 24/7
—  you must love you the most.
Walk in truth. Leave footprints of honesty.
— A.D. Posey
There’s nothing like the gift of understanding.
— A.D. Posey
When we hear our souls speak, we are free.
— A.D. Posey
Every painting tells a story.
— A.D. Posey
Surround yourself with those conducive to you being your highest self.
— A.D. Posey
Be the spark.
— A.D. Posey
It’s great to be here.
— A.D. Posey
Love is the universal language.
— A.D. Posey
Everything that is old was once new.
— A.D. Posey
Work with yourself.
— A.D. Posey
I’d rather be a fool than afraid.
— A.D. Posey
Love is the miracle of life.
— A.D. Posey
Love is growing up.
— A.D. Posey
Allow your mood to be sweet and your day will be sweet too.
— A.D. Posey
A great snow is the calm death of struggle and the transformative birth of life.
— A.D. Posey
Love is the way to happiness.
— A.D. Posey
Be life.
— A.D. Posey
The muse is the mystic force, but you are the master.
— A.D. Posey
Dance with the clouds.
— A.D. Posey
Live spiritually and you’ll be fine.
— A.D. Posey
Fear is the enemy of success.
— A.D. Posey
We all just need to be real. That is what will save us.
— A.D. Posey
Sometimes you just have to have a can-do fuck you attitude.
— A.D. Posey
All is as we are.
— A.D. Posey
Only by creating out of love will one achieve true greatness.
— A.D. Posey
You will find the greatest happiness in letting yourself be.
— A.D. Posey
You always have it. It’s always there.
— A.D. Posey
It’s amazing what you can do when you get creative.
— A.D. Posey
My life: under construction, but beautiful.
— A.D. Posey
Perspective is the key to everything.
— A.D. Posey
All answers to life’s key questions are found within.
— A.D. Posey
The truth is everything.
— A.D. Posey
Energy will go into what you love, and what you love will grow. Go for a walk and watch it bloom.
— A.D. Posey
Don’t we all look up at the same stars?
— A.D. Posey
Be an artist
—  you can get away with anything.
The greatest artists see what is invisible to the masses.
— A.D. Posey
Life is the stuff of miracles.
— A.D. Posey
Signs don’t shout
—  they whisper.
Look through the eyes of your highest self. What do you see?
— A.D. Posey
Simplicity is efficient.
— A.D. Posey
Accept nothing. Challenge everything.
— A.D. Posey
Want a role? Fuck a screenwriter.
— A.D. Posey
Listen to yourself and you are heard.
— A.D. Posey
I already won.
— A.D. Posey
Write where you want to go.
— A.D. Posey
Life is not a popularity contest.
— A.D. Posey
I write because I love. I love because I write.
— A.D. Posey
Live in the now and the how will take care of itself.
— A.D. Posey
Happiness is a hot bath on a Sunday afternoon.
— A.D. Posey
Always let life be wild. Forever have life be interesting.
— A.D. Posey
Rocks and minerals: the oldest storytellers.
— A.D. Posey
If someone tells you something is impossible, make it possible.
— A.D. Posey
Screw chocolate. A good steak is where it’s at.
— A.D. Posey
How you feel after watching something indicates not what you watched but where you are at.
— A.D. Posey
Life isn’t life without real butter.
— A.D. Posey
A single recipe holds countless stories.
— A.D. Posey
In the end, we begin.
— A.D. Posey
The more you focus on fun, the more fun you have.
— A.D. Posey
Love is the key to everything. Love your life.
— A.D. Posey
A masterpiece does not unfurl its wings immediately. It takes time. It will fly when it is ready.
— A.D. Posey
Be the best you.
— A.D. Posey
Love is a dance.
— A.D. Posey
Comedians are people who embarrass themselves in style.
— A.D. Posey
The more of those little light bulbs that can turn on the better. Eventually you’ll have enough to light up a movie screen.
— A.D. Posey
Don’t just hit a home run. Knock it out of the park.
— A.D. Posey
Extend your vacation whenever possible.
— A.D. Posey
One is far better off feeling than one is thinking.
— A.D. Posey
See the truth. Feel the truth. Be the truth.
— A.D. Posey
Don’t just raise the bar… Raise the roof.
— A.D. Posey
A great story is impossible to forget.
— A.D. Posey
You paint the picture of your surroundings. Paint it beautifully.
— A.D. Posey
All the geniuses and greats are really just nerds with experience.
— A.D. Posey
Be the sun breaking through the clouds.
— A.D. Posey
There is no time for holding back.
— A.D. Posey
Truth is not a stereotype.
— A.D. Posey
Find what speaks to your energy and live it.
— A.D. Posey
All the promise of a movie is in the trailer.
— A.D. Posey
Every day is a journey.
— A.D. Posey
As long as you’re with you, that’s all that matters.
— A.D. Posey
Dance when the sun comes up.
— A.D. Posey
A writer’s breakthrough is a breakdown with a smile.
— A.D. Posey
In life, be a kid in a candy store.
— A.D. Posey
A good preview makes you can’t wait to see the whole movie.
— A.D. Posey
Life is short. Write naked.
— A.D. Posey
Every day sings its own song.
— A.D. Posey
Find the earth within.
— A.D. Posey
When we think, we hurt. When we feel, we heal.
— A.D. Posey
A film that is a true work of art transcends theatre and heartwarmingly changes lives.
— A.D. Posey
Just say no to negative energy.
— A.D. Posey
Don’t look. See.Don’t think. Feel.Don’t hear.Listen.Pay attentionMiracles really do happen every day
— A.D. Posey
Love your story.
— A.D. Posey
Doubt: How can I know? Truth: How can you not?
— A.D. Posey
At least I’m not afraid, and no one will ever call me boring.
— A.D. Posey
There’s always a reason to look up.
— A.D. Posey
When life gives you a second chance, don’t just run with it…fly.
— A.D. Posey
You are happy and kind; therefore, you are successful.
— A.D. Posey
If it’s not gonna matter tomorrow, it shouldn’t matter today.
— A.D. Posey
The truth brings people closer together.
— A.D. Posey
I always like the story behind the story more than the story itself.
— A.D. Posey
Be one with today’s adventure.
— A.D. Posey
Further editing deepens a story.
— A.D. Posey
A day of rest yields a hundred days of progress.
— A.D. Posey
The canker of self-consciousness has been long in me, so like a lot of writers I not only do a thing, I see myself doing it too—it’s almost like not being alone. That morning our hero skipped in his skivvies down to the shore of the sea . . . it was dark . . . the fog . . . Storytelling!
— Charles D'Ambrosio, Loitering: New & Collected Essays
Everything is going to be all right. Miracles happen everyday.
— A.D. Posey
Follow life’s bliss.
— A.D. Posey
Once you are at the point where you can call yourself a writer, there's no turning back.
— A.D. Posey
You are your own magical elixir. Waste not one drop.
— A.D. Posey
Sometimes writing is like playing with fire… like trying to tame an uncontrollable beast.
— A.D. Posey
Not everything can stand the test of time, but a story can.
— A.D. Posey
Once you are at the point where you can call yourself a writer, there’s no turning back.
— A.D. Posey
Be your best company.
— A.D. Posey
In the equation of life, the limit does not exist.
— A.D. Posey
Everything is going to be all right. Miracles happen every day.
— A.D. Posey
Writers are cut open on the page.
— A.D. Posey
Film brings people together.
— A.D. Posey
Feel yourself climbing the mountain.
— A.D. Posey
I can’t sew, but I can spin one helluva yarn.
— A.D. Posey
The best writing is embarrassing
—  that’s all there is to it.
When we write, we discover answers, though the key is not in the discovery but in the timing of the implementation.
— A.D. Posey
Write out of love. Your piece will finish itself.
— A.D. Posey
The story becomes clearer with time.
— A.D. Posey
Screenwriting is like poker; in the end, you have to go all in.
— A.D. Posey
Storytelling keeps life going.
— A.D. Posey
Storytelling answers questions and solves mysteries.
— A.D. Posey
I think every writer has a little freak in ‘em.
— A.D. Posey
Make your writing memorable.
— A.D. Posey
Every object holds a story.
— A.D. Posey
Sometimes you’re the protagonist and someone else is the hero.
— A.D. Posey
At the end of your story, you get down to the purity of it all. It’s like distilling something.
— A.D. Posey
A true piece of writing sets you free.
— A.D. Posey
Just surrender to the story.
— A.D. Posey
It ends when you’re ready for a new beginning.
— A.D. Posey
One must learn the rules so one can break them properly.
— A.D. Posey
I am free to write: therefore, I am free to be.
— A.D. Posey
Screenwriting is made of brevity.
— A.D. Posey
Go write win!
— A.D. Posey
You can tell the number of hours spent on a work by counting the number of coffee rings on your desk.
— A.D. Posey
I like to think that Henry James said his classic line, "A writer is someone on whom nothing is lost," while looking for his glasses, and that they were on top of his head.
— Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
People who are drawn to journalism are usually people who, because of their cynicism or emotional detachment or reserve or whatever, are incapable of being anything but witnesses to events. Something prevents them from becoming involved, committed, and allows them to remain separate.
— Nora Ephron
Novelist by day
—  screenwriter by night.
How is Mrs. Rivers doing?' asked the agent, a very tall and large man, well-dressed, bald and depressing, with a manner of gliding into his office from a side door without perceptibly moving his feet which had struck terror into many young writers and caused them to accept the lowest terms Mr. Hobb could offer.
— Angela Thirkell
Writers don't have bad life days
—  they just have good research days.
But most good writers are Don Quixote at heart, and unreasonableness is often a condition of art.
— Ha Jin, The Writer as Migrant
Work on your craft, whatever your medium. Determination is your illusion headway toward reality.
— JT Sanz
God is the creator of all good plot twists!
— Shannon L. Alder
People wrote me off but they did not realize that I was a writer.
— Amit Abraham
Sometimes she arches away from me and wears a light halo of genius about her.
— Priya Parmar, Vanessa and Her Sister
The key is in the craft.
— A.D. Posey
We write until we find our way. Then the real fun begins.
— A.D. Posey
When life gives you the gift of a great story, to not partake in the telling of that story would be a crime against humanity.
— A.D. Posey
Writing heals the quandaries of life.
— Susan J. McIntire
Writers don’t write about just anybody.
— A.D. Posey
Write before the sun comes up.
— A.D. Posey
Own your truth.
— A.D. Posey
In the end, you have to make love to your story and see what happens.
— A.D. Posey
It’s always more than just a story.
— A.D. Posey
Let your story breathe and be what it really is.
— A.D. Posey
Take your ego out of your story.
— A.D. Posey
DON'T BE JEALOUS OF OTHERS - EVER. YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT THEY HAD TO DO TO GET TO WHERE THEY ARE.
— Chris Mentillo
Perhaps behind our occasional hostility toward the artist and writer there may be a slight tinge of jealousy. The man or woman who for the sake of family life, children, takes up work he does not like, disciplines himself, sacrifices some fantasy he had once, to travel or to paint, or even possibly to write, may feel toward the artist and writer a jealousy of his adventurous life. The artist and the writer have generally paid the full price for their independence and for the privilege of doing work they love, or for their artistic rebellions against standardized living or values.
— Anaïs Nin, The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 5: 1947-1955
Listen to life, and you will hear the voice of life crying, Be!
— Chinese fortune cookie
Sergeant Boyle was an Earthling. He was the only Earthling on the expedition. In fact, he was the only creature from the Milky Way. The other members were from all over the place. The expedition was a joint effort supported by about two hundred galaxies. Boyle wasn't a technician. He was an English teacher. The thing was that Earth was the only place in the whole known Universe where language was used. It was a unique Earthling invention. Everybody else used mental telepathy, so Earthlings could get pretty good jobs as language teachers just about anywhere they went. The reason creatures wanted to use language instead of mental telepathy was that they found out they could get so much more done with language. Language made them so much more active. Mental telepathy, with everybody constantly telling everybody everything, produced a sort of generalized indifference to all information. But language, with its slow, narrow meanings, made it possible to think about one thing at a time -- to start thinking in terms of projects.
— Kurt Vonnegut Jr., God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater
You are your own best teacher. ~Jimmy Buffett
— Jimmy Buffett, A Pirate Looks at Fifty
Life is sacred story.
— Lailah Gifty Akita, Pearls of  Wisdom: Great  mind
There is no such thing as an 'unemployed writer', only an unemployed mind
— Kevin Cowdall, Paper Gods and Iron Men
I believe that writers, unless they consider themselves terribly exquisite, are at heart people who live by night, a little bit outside society, moving between delinquency and conformity.
— Guillermo Cabrera Infante
Sometimes I wonder if novel writers aren’t completely f**ked in the head. ~ Drew Stirling
— Jayden Hunter, Undressed To The Nines
As a writer: Aim toward becoming keen through a looking glass limn perspective on evoking pleasure of the senses with STRONG VERBS.
— JT Sanz
You Don't Have To Be The Best Writer In The World To Become A Successful Author. However, You Do Need To Sell Lots of Books.
— Chris Mentillo
So she's one of the grande dames of fandom? The Madame de Staël of the Starveil world?
— Danika Stone, All the Feels
I believe books should be like a prime rib steak ~ good and thick.
— E.A. Bucchianeri
It may be said with a degree of assurance that not everything that meets the eye is as it appears.
— Rod Serling, The Twilight Zone: Complete Stories
Isn't it strange how the most lethal cynics are often the most optimistic creative dreamers?
— Robert  Black
For writers - even sportswriters - bad news is always easier than good, since it is, after all, more familiar.
— Richard Ford, The Sportswriter
I believe almost every author have gone through the terribly uncomfortable period between the time of shedding the seeds of a story and waiting to see it flourish as a published book, spending hours watering and fertilizing it. This is a dreadful period, frustrating and depressing.
— Ama H. Vanniarachchy
Say to yourself in the kindest possible way, Look, honey, all we're going to for now is to write a description of the river at sunrise, or the young child swimming in the pool at the club, or the first time the man sees the woman he will marry. That is all we are going to do for now. We are just going to take this bird by bird. But we are going to finish this one short assignment.
— Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
I’m a writer. Therefore, I am not sane.
— K. D. Green
I write because I believe
— Anamika Mishra
If you do not want to be forgotten as soon as you are dead...be read, or try coming back and pull the feet of those who are still alive instead!
— Ana Claudia Antunes, Pierrot Love: When A Call From The Other Side Takes Its Own Side
Life is a book.
— Lailah Gifty Akita, Think Great: Be Great!
Being a famous writer is great. But there is a limit for it. For what extend can you be famous, and what would you achieve? True, your books will be best sellers, your blog writings and tweets will be hits, fans will love you, and what next? We all die to reach ‘there’ as budding writers, but once we reach ‘it’, we think, what next? Is this what we wanted all our lives? To grab all the leading awards, write best sellers, to be loved, to be known and heard? Will they help us achieve inner peace? I believe the utmost important thing is achieving inner peace, not money and fame. A writer should write to achieve inner peace forgetting all other things. Money, fame, fans are not going to last forever, but inner peace is.
— Ama H. Vanniarachchy
I write because I want to fall in love with love over and over again
— Anamika Mishra
The Great stories give us the hope and the courage to survive life.
— Lailah Gifty Akita, Think Great: Be Great!
I write because I always want good to win over evil
— Anamika Mishra
I write because it's a beautiful habit
— Anamika Mishra
I write because I know I am only one to control the world I created in my books.
— Anamika Mishra
I write because I know magic happens
— Anamika Mishra
A writer can never escape the labyrinth of words inside his mind.
— K.D. Green
I write because I know world I create is much beautiful than the world I live in
— Anamika Mishra
You will always find me writing and reading as long as I have the breath of life within me.
— K.D. Green
If you want to write, write. It’s as simple as that.
— K.D. Green
I know having a job can sometimes be very challenging, but not having one can be too.
— Chris Mentillo
The secret to good writing is to use small words for big ideas, not to use big words for small ideas.
— Oliver Markus
The poet or the story-teller who cannot give the reader a little ghostly pleasure at times never can be either a really great writer or a great thinker.
— Lafcadio Hearn
Writing is the high alchemy of the soul that combines words and ideas to create magic.
— Sharif Khan
...so I think writers are made and not born. But what you choose to write is buried so deeply inside it's like lodestones inside you and sooner or later you come near something that you're supposed to be doing with your life and it's like a magnet. It attracts.
— Stephen King
The most important step in the whole process was to just sit down and do it. My hobby has become a second career. Who knew?-Jamie Beck, Romance Novelist
— Holly Hurd, Venture Mom: From Idea to Income in Just 12 Weeks
Don't be timid. You're a writer, use your role, test it, make something of it. These are decisive times, everything is turning upside down. Participate, be present.
— Elena Ferrante
Lying in small doses makes a good storyteller great.
— Bryan Way
Within my words there is a longingTo be written, through the senses to travel across the mindTo be perceived by your heart, to rest in your deep.
— Preeth Nambiar, The Voyage to Eternity
I don’t see big subjects as separate from little ones. Yes, you could trudge through life with great human tragedies played out before your eyes without ever taking notice. Or you could see a universe in the smallest thing. The way a person takes their coffee, for example, might say something profound and important about that person, about all humanity, about existence itself.
— Johnny Rich
To be motivated to write a novel, I need to be unable not to write.
— Johnny Rich
Good writing is more about graft and craft than inspiration and aspiration.
— Johnny Rich
I was asked, ‘When is the next book release, it’s been over a year since the last book release, have you given up writing?” Again a senseless question by a Sri Lankan journalist. Does it mean that being a writer means you have to release a book every month? Do they count a writer’s success by the quantity of books or the quality of the work? I am concerned about the quality of work, not the quantity of books that I release. One can publish hundreds of books within a couple of years today as technology is advance and cheap, but keeping the quality of the work is something you cannot depend of technology and money. It is the quality of thinking of the writer which should reflect through their work. I have been in the field for almost 2 and a half years, learnt a lot through trial and error, learn through my mistakes. I am no longer bothered about the number of books I write, how much I spend or how much I earn, my only focus is to do something quality which will last long, even after I am gone, something that will touch the soul of the readers. Will these journalists understand a soul of an artist? In this big dirty game of ‘media mafia’, ‘artists’ are only marketing ideas.
— Ama H. Vanniarachchy
Writers should be heard, not seen.
— Ama H. Vanniarachchy
I write because in my books, I can experience those (mad and crazy) things that I won't be able to do in my real life
— Anamika Mishra
I write because I want to inspire people and help them live a sorted life
— Anamika Mishra
I write because I want to give strength to myself
— Anamika Mishra
By small and simple sentences, great books come to pass.
— Richelle E. Goodrich
If you are an artist, may no love of wealth or fame or admiration and no fear of blame or misunderstanding make you ever paint, with pen or brush, an ideal of external life otherwise than as you see it.
— Olive Schreiner
Unless a writer is extremely old when he dies, in which case he has probably become a neglected institution, his death must always be seen as untimely. This is because a real writer is always shifting and changing and searching. The world has many labels for him, of which the most treacherous is the label of 'Success.
— James     Baldwin
Write if you will: but write about the world as it is and as you think it ought to be and must be—if there is to be a world. Write about all the things that men have written about since the beginning of writing and talking—but write to a point. Work hard at it, care about it. Write about our people: tell their story. You have something glorious to draw on begging for attention. Don’t pass it up. You have something glorious to draw on begging for attention. Don’t pass it up. Use it. Good luck to you. The Nation needs your gifts. Lorraine Hansberry speech, “To Be Young, Gifted, and Black,” given to Readers Digest/United Negro College Fund creative writing contest winners, NYC, May 1, 1964.
— Lorraine Hansberry
THE THINGS POETS & WRITERS DO THAT I LOVEListen to the AncestorsAcknowledge their influences Trust their gut-feelings and act on themMaintain openness. Play Dance with languagesBe bold Refuse servilityAvoid arroganceEmbrace the unknownLove the journey Respect one’s fellow journeyers
— Billy Marshall Stoneking
I believe that books, once they are written, have no need of their authors. If they have something to say, they will sooner or later find readers; if not, they won’t. . . . I very much love those mysterious volumes, both ancient and modern, that have no definite author but have had and continue to have an intense life of their own. They seem to me a sort of nighttime miracle, like the gifts of the Befana, which I waited for as a child. . . . True miracles are the ones whose makers will never be known. . . .
— Elena Ferrante
Where do you get your ideas?' people are always asking authors they admire, which I’ve always thought was another way of asking, 'How did you get my ideas, which I didn’t know I had until you put words to them?' We are known, appreciated, even cherished by our favorite writers; every word of our favorite books seems to have been written for us. Within their sentences and paragraphs, those writers are forever available, forever patient, including us in their compassionate recognition of the impossible, exhausting complexity of being human (those “many thousand” selves), never ignoring us or abandoning us or finding us dull. It’s you, they whisper, as we turn their pages, you are the one I’ve been waiting to tell everything to.
— Suzanne Berne
Apparently, now, though, we writers and artists are not allowed to give offence. We must not question, criticise or insult the other, for fear of being hounded and murdered. These days a writer without bodyguards can hardly be considered serious. A bad review is the least of our problems.
— Hanif Kureishi, The Last Word
I don’t know any writers who don’t drink.
— James     Baldwin
Writers live twice.
— —Natalie Goldberg
We, writers & poets, have a big problem. We swim too deep inside life, also in shallow waters, and then we end touching the sand!
— Rossana Condoleo
...The question is, why do you think you can't be a writer?""To be a writer, you need readers.""I'm no painter, then. Who ever looks at my little dumb pieces of shit?
— Barbara Kingsolver
That is why my first and most pressing question seems like such an outright act of mutiny. What I want to know is, since when does making art require participation in any community, beyond the intense participation that the art itself is undertaking? Since when am I not contributing to the community if all I want to do is make the art itself? Isn’t the art itself my intimate communication with others, with the world, with the unfolding spectacle of the human struggle as we live and coexist on this earth?
— Meghan Tifft
Since when did the community become our moral compass—our viability and ethics as writers determined so much by our team spirit? ... What if all this communing actually hurts the primary means by which I set out to participate and communicate—my writing itself?
— Meghan Tifft
Nothing ever really ends. That’s the horrible part of being in the short-story business—you have to be a real expert on ends. Nothing in real life ends. ‘Millicent at last understands.’ Nobody ever understands.
— Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Enjoy writers and entertainers but don't substitute their synthesis of truth and reality for your own. Seek your own counsel as much as you can. Dependence on any one or anything else will eventually result in disappointment and this may be, as it always was.
— Nikhil Sharda, Sans Destination
If we must encounter each other, let’s do it the old way—in the dark, by the fire, our breaths bated, the world a big black mystery beyond us.
— Meghan Tifft
And the sculptors will shape the soil for the writers to stretch the seedsfor the patient painters who sketch the petals they will shade in alabaster and gold. Their sweat is the rain. Maybe the jazzman will send us a rose.
— Kristen Henderson, Drum Machine
It is kind of ridiculous that a poet is expected to live in the real world.
— Sanober  Khan
The highest duty of the writer is to remain true to himself and let the chips fall where they may. In serving his vision of the truth the artist best serves his nation.
— John F. Kennedy
Don't wait for writers to be dead to be read
—  the living ones can use the money.
I soon forgot about my bedraggled appearance. Until, that is, an old man shuffled in and propped himself, hunched and wheezing, over the check-in desk. Karen asked him if he needed assistance. “No,” he grunted sucking on his teeth, “your wet-T-shirt librarian with the punk rock hair is helping me out just fine.
— Suzanne Kelman, The Rejected Writers' Book Club
The muse is fickle; ergo, when she knocks, ANSWER! It may take a while, but trust me, she WILL knock. In the meantime, keep your ear pressed firmly to the door.
— Quentin R. Bufogle
The ‘coons had enjoyed a real party, and my trashcan had been the piñata! They’d obviously indulged in an evening of feasting on our wares and then staggered off the property loaded up with our birdseed as a little take-home gift!
— Suzanne Kelman, The Rejected Writers' Book Club
Writers are not narcissists. They simply acknowledge that what they find interesting is not unique to them.
— M Chapman
Books inspire a man to embrace the world or flee it. They start wars and end them. They make the men and women who write and publish them vast fortunes, and nearly as quickly can drive them into madness and despair. Stay away from what you do not fathom from now on...
— Matthew Pearl, The Last Bookaneer
If I remember correctly writers usually find some excuse for their books, although why one should excuse oneself for having such a quiet and peaceful occupation I really don't know. Military people never seem to apologize for killing each other yet novelists feel ashamed for writing some nice inert paper book that is not certain to be read by anybody.
— Leonora Carrington, The Hearing Trumpet
Sentences spoken by writers, unless they have been written out first, rarely say what writers wish to say. Writers are unlucky speakers, by and large, which accounts for their being in a profession which encourages them to stay at their desk for years, if necessary, pondering what to say next and how best to say it. Interviewers propose to speed up this process by trepanning writers, so to speak, and fishing around in their brains for unused ideas which otherwise might never get out of there. Not a single idea has ever been discovered by means of this brutal method-- and still the trepanning of authors goes on every day.I now refuse all those who wish to take the top off my skull yet again. The only way to get anything out of a writer's brains is to leave him or her alone until he or she is damn well ready to write it down.
— Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
These writers take the essence of every person around them, turn them into books and stories without permission or even a simple thank-you, and want all the credit and glory for themselves.
— Matthew Pearl, The Last Bookaneer
Who can think of Larkin now without considering his fondness for the buttocks of schoolgirls and paranoid hatred of blacks … Or Eric Gill’s copulations with more or less every member of his family, including the dog? Proust had rats tortured, and donated his family furniture to brothels; Dickens walled up his wife and kept her from her children; Lillian Hellman lied. While Sartre lived with his mother, Simone de Beauvoir pimped babes for him; he envied Camus, before trashing him. John Cheever loitered in toilets, nostrils aflare, before returning to his wife. P.G. Wodehouse made broadcasts for the Nazis; Mailer stabbed his second wife. Two of Ted Hughes’s lovers had killed themselves. And as for Styron, Salinger, Saroyan … Literature was a killing field; no decent person had ever picked up a pen.
— Hanif Kureishi, The Last Word
The average buyer in bookshop spends 8 seconds on the front cover and 15 seconds on the back cover before deciding whether to purchase the book or not. On average, he does not get past page 18. See? The odds are stacked against us writers!
— Ashwin Sanghi
Writing is like daydreaming through your fingers.
— Jenna Alatari
Don’t know where to begin writing? Just throw up on paper.
— Carolyn V. Hamilton
To all you writers, artists, musicians, creative types who want to give up: It's okay to walk away for a bit. Get your second wind. But your writing, art, music will be there, lurking over your shoulder, and it will call to you, and you will answer. And come back even stronger.
— Kathleen M.  Rodgers
The face that greeted me, however, was far from welcoming, it was a miniature stick insect of a woman with wiry white hair and enormous glasses that emphasized her heavily wrinkled face. She blinked twice and looked me up and down. By the look on her face, she wasn’t that impressed with what she saw. “Who is it, Ethel?”She responded, “It’s some homeless woman. She looks like she needs money and a good wash.” And I thought I’d already reached the lowest point of my day.
— Suzanne Kelman, The Rejected Writers' Book Club
the painter had no need for grammar.words fell from his brushes already knowing where to stand, sit, lie down.
— Thomas Lloyd Qualls, Love Jaywalks: Poems From The Novel Waking Up At Rembrandts
I'd represent "Love" when it sued hypocritical writers for abuse.
— Natalya Vorobyova
We put on a pot of tea, a necessity between these two writing friends. Wecould no more imagine writing without this hot sustenance than we couldwithout pen and paper. We sat at the table to talk shop, sort through ournotes, and make plans for the book. Then we settled down in the sunroom,giggling a little at the unexpected absurdity of our activity, editingwithin arm’s reach of each other, like toddlers at parallel play.
— Mary Potter Kenyon, Mary & Me: A Lasting Link Through Ink
This winter, there will be no voices, no glimpses, no arms.only the fabric of poetry, to keep me warm.
— Sanober  Khan, Turquoise Silence
Nowadays, the Internet decides if you're good, not the big man in the big office. No matter how important that man thinks he is, everyone else knows that he's not important anymore, and the Internet decides these things, here in the modern age.
— Alexei Maxim Russell
Letting go looks different for everyone, I think. Sometimes it's as simple as waking up one day and deciding not to let your past rule you. Other times it's a process; slow moving and painful, like trudging through a forest of thorny vines in hopes that you'll find freedom on the other side.
— Allison J. Kennedy
How....will I ever truly depict you?You’re perfect, my writing isn’t.
— Sanober  Khan, A touch, a tear, a tempest
Passionate attraction to someone of the opposite sex will make a hero or a fool of a novelist each time.
— Roman Payne, Europa: Limited Time Edition
Film and novel characters are often stereotyped, but racial stereotyping in many novels or films creates & encourages labelling, discrimination & racism. ~Angelica Hopes
— Angelica Hopes
What would normal people think if they knew what went on in a writer's mind below the surface? They'd think him even more around the bend than they had previously supposed if they could see the witches' cauldron of images and memories boiling up from the subconscious, impressions whirling in from without, ideas and insights bursting up like bubbles and gone again before they can be seized. And the hopelessness of the business, the whole infuriating, exhausting, fascinating business of grabbing something out of the turmoil and imposing upon it some faint shadow or rumor of the order, pattern and rhythm of the world.
— Elizabeth Goudge, The Scent of Water
Writing gives me wings.
— Ama H. Vanniarachchy
A man was leaning idly against an elm. ... The man, who towered over the poet even at his slanting angle, too old for a student and too worn for a faculty member, stared at him with the familiar, insatiable gleam of the literary admirer.
— Matthew Pearl, The Dante Club
A writer is simply one who writes words, Even if just 1 person reads it your work, or a 100, or 1million or 100,000 You are a writer.
— Uma Nnenna
The pen, a double-edged mystery: cuts the writer, heals the reader.
— Jenim Dibie
Writers are always alone, even in a room bursting with noises of the familiar.
— Rachel  Thompson, Broken Places: A Memoir of Abuse
I just thought, ‘Wait a minute, if I’m going to start writing again, I have to go to the quiet place.' And this is the least quiet place I’ve ever been in my life. … It’s like taking the bar exam at Coachella. It’s like, ‘Um, I really need to concentrate on this! Guys! Can you all just…I have to…It’s super important for my law!
— Joss Whedon
Meeting writers is usually disappointing, at best. Writers who write sexy thrillers aren't necessarily sexy or thrilling in person. Children's book writers might look more like accountants, or axe murderers for that matter. Horror writers are very rarely scary looking, although they are frequently good cooks.
— Kelly Link
With the young writers now it’s F and C all day long, which he, personally, finds boring.
— Margaret Atwood, Stone Mattress: Nine Tales
All we can do is write, but its up to the reader to decide if we wrote masterpieces or empty silliness, and there is nothing you can do till another reader says different.
— Uma Nnenna
Survivors of the red pen can overcome the blank paper…
— Nanette L. Avery
to be a poet meansto live with a permanent wound forever susceptibleto either the shade of the skyor someone's eyes.
— Sanober  Khan
may this poetrybe the homeyou will someday come back to.
— Sanober  Khan, A touch, a tear, a tempest
Speak in your own voice about the things that matter to you.
— Marty Rubin
Every exceptional writer holds a Master of Arts in Daydreaming.
— Richelle E. Goodrich
Every writer dreams about the day they can step into their fiction and wander its hallways.
— Shannon L. Alder
I don't need to write a memoir of my life. All you need to do is read one of my books. I'm there.
— Lori Lesko
and everyone wants to read the poem we’re afraid to write.
— Kelli Russell Agodon, Hourglass Museum
For the real writers, every decision is either write or wrong.
— Richelle E. Goodrich
Authors are sick people.
— Sarah M. Eden
Writing is a lonely business, which if allowed publicity and socializing it might deteriorate. Supportive people understand the need of a writer to withdraw to the solitude of oneself.
— Gloria D. Gonsalves
Words made you mighty. Words, stories, books: they could take you anywhere, and they could go out anywhere in the world. Jenny -- Jane -- picked up her pen, and began to write.
— Lisa Pliscou, Young Jane Austen: Becoming a Writer
Bookish folk aren’t what they used to be. Introverted, reserved, studious. There was a time when bookish folk would steer clear of trendy bars, dinner occasions and gatherings. Any social or public encounters would be avoided at all costs because these activities were very un-bookish. Bookish people preferred to stay in, or to sit alone in a quiet pub, reading a good book, or getting some writing done. Writers, in fact, perhaps epitomised these bookish traits most strongly. At least, they used to.These days, bookish people, such as writers, are commonly found on stage, headlining festivals, or being interviewed on TV. Author events and performances have proliferated, becoming established parts of a writer’s role. It’s not that authors have suddenly become more extroverted – it’s more a case that their job description has changed. Of course, not all writers are bookish. Not in the traditional sense of the word anyway. Some are well suited for public life, particularly those from certain academic backgrounds where public speaking is encouraged and confidence in social situations is shaped and formed. These writers may even be termed ‘gregarious’, and are thus happy being offered up for speaking engagements, stage discussions and signings. Good for them. But the others – the timid, shy and mousy authors – they’re being thrust into the limelight too. That’s my lot. The social wipeouts. Unprepared and ill-equipped to face our reader audience. What’s most concerning is that no one is offering us any guidance or tips. We’re expected to hit the ground running, confident and ready, loaded with banter, quips and answers. It’s a disaster waiting to happen.
— Paul Ewen
He (Mario Vargas Llosa) looks grave, transported. And there, I think, is the personality that wrote the books: one in which a subversive comic sense and appetite for the ridiculous jostle with an intense, statesmanlike seriousness about the business of being alive.
— Tim Martin
Basically, writers write because they have something to say...Everyone has a story in them, writers merely decide to share it with the world...
— Virginia Alison
my poetry is merely a body.you are the soul in my words.
— Sanober  Khan
When we sit down to write, we psychically enter a sanctuary. This safe haven is our own personal space where we can say whatever is on our mind, where we can talk about what matters most to us, where we can imagine the kind of world that we would like to live.
— Rob Bignell, Editor, Writing Affirmations: A Collection of Positive Messages to Inspire Writers
Bedtime is daytime, and we come into bloom after midnight.
— Lenore Kandel, Collected Poems of Lenore Kandel
It is a wonderful thing to be liked by a stranger, but without respect it is pointless. It is like pulling the pedals off a rose and throwing the stem at the person you like. It’s creepy, but had good intentions that suddenly experienced some strange form of verticillium wilt, during the climate change of their mood.
— Shannon L. Alder
His imagination seemed still to exhaust itself in running, before it tried to leap the ditch. While he mused, the fire burned in other brains. Other hands wrote the books he dreamed about. He freely used his good ideas in conversation, and in letters; and they were straightway wrought into the texture of other men's books, and so lost to him for ever.
— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Kavanagh
With acting, you gotta wait until someone gives you a role in a play or movie. With writing, you're not dependent on others, you don't have to wait. You can sit down and just create.
— Donal Logue
..here's the editor's prescription, writer: 1000 words daily until next checkup.
— Rob Bignell, Editor, Writing Affirmations: A Collection of Positive Messages to Inspire Writers
When I reach for my pen, nothing is out of reach.
— Rob Bignell, Editor, Writing Affirmations: A Collection of Positive Messages to Inspire Writers
Are writers the torchbearers of humanity? It’s a romantic idea, but it’s complete rubbish. We writers are the crocodiles in the river.
— Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen, The Rabbit Back Literature Society
Replace your old books with the book you've always wanted to write.
— Rob Bignell, Editor, Writing Affirmations: A Collection of Positive Messages to Inspire Writers
All writers are different, each have their own artist way they go about telling a story. The only thing they have in common, is they write.
— Lori Lesko