Top Writing Craft Quotes

You cannot be a great writer in a shop where words are sold in tens and twenties.

I always tell my writing students that every good piece of writing begins with both a mystery and a love story. And that every single sentence must be a poem. And that economy is the key to all good w...

When you start out writing, your inner creative is just a little seedling with tiny leaves above the earth, peeping out into the air for the first time.

Sometimes you have to tell a a bunch of lies to get at the truth.

People are suckers for the truth and they know it when they see it. Open your soul and they will stop and watch.

Nothing is wasted when you are a writer. The stuff that doesn't work has to be written to make way for the stuff that might; often you need to take the long way around. And if you're writing memoir yo...

Writing's in the nouns.

All morning I lay down sentences, erase them, and try new ones. Soon enough, when things go well, the world around me dwindles: the sky out the window, the furious calm of the big umbrella pine ten fe...

A writer's problem does not change. He himself changes and the world he lives in changes but his problem remains the same. It is always how to write truly and, having found what is true, to project it...

Words are the bones. Writing is the lungs. Reading is like breathing.

Writer's block? I've never heard of a plumber complain about plumber's block.

Find the problem, find the story.

The trouble with writing fiction is that it has to make sense, whereas real life doesn't.

If you're a writer, write. And always strive for excellence.

Does any program really improve anybody, as much as simply identifying them? And, after identifying them, not ruining them?

I trust my characters. They know their stories better than I do.

I admire the person who can write it right off. Mencken once said that a person who thinks clearly can write well. But I don't think clearly--too many thoughts bump into one another. Trains of thought...

Formula for success: rise early, work hard, strike oil. J.Paul Getty

Writing novels is the hardest thing I've ever done, including digging irrigation ditches.

If you start to revise before you've reached the end, you're likely to begin dawdling with the revisions and putting off the difficult task of writing.