Writing is a craft that needs to be honed through deliberate practice and st over time. Thankfully, there are a host of great writers who have not only mastered the craft of writing but also offered sound advice on how to do it.
Whether you want to be a writer or you’re experiencing writer’s block or you want to stop being too critical of your work, here are some quotes to inspire you.
1. “Read a thousand books, and your words will flow like a river.” – William Faulkner
2. “You don’t start out writing good stuff. You start out writing crap and thinking it’s good stuff, and then gradually you get better at it. That’s why I say one of the most valuable traits is persistence.” ― Octavia E. Butler
3. “You can always edit a bad page. You can’t edit a blank page.” ― Jodi Picoult
4. “Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on.” — Louis L’Amour
5. “Every secret of a writer’s soul, every experience of his life, every quality of his mind, is written large in his works.” — Virginia Woolf
6. “And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.” ― Sylvia Plath
7. “When your story is ready for rewrite, cut it to the bone. Get rid of every ounce of excess fat. This is going to hurt; revising a story down to the bare essentials is always a little like murdering children, but it must be done.” — Stephen King
8. “If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” –Toni Morrison
9. 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
10. “Don’t bend; don’t water it down; don’t try to make it logical; don’t edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly.” — Franz Kafka
11. “I can shake off everything as I write; my sorrows disappear, my courage is reborn.” — Anne Frank
12. “A professional writer is an amateur who didn’t quit.” — Richard Bach
13. “People say, ‘What advice do you have for people who want to be writers?’ I say, they don’t really need advice, they know they want to be writers, and they’re gonna do it. Those people who know that they really want to do this and are cut out for it, they know it.” — R.L. Stine
14. “Read, read, read. Read everything – trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You’ll absorb it. Then write. If it’s good, you’ll find out. If it’s not, throw it out of the window.”
–William Faulkner
15. “I believe myself that a good writer doesn’t really need to be told anything except to keep at it.” — Chinua Achebe
Did you like these quotes? If so, let us know in the comment section below.
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