What are your favourite quotes about writing?

by Clare ADMIN
27th September 2021

To celebrate the upcoming release of Writers on Writing, we'd love to hear your favourite quotes about writing. Share them in the comments section of this post for your chance to win a W&A editing service!

The winner, chosen at random by the W&A Team on Friday 8th October, will win the chance to submit their questions directly to a literary agent via our Agony Agent - Mail editing service!

In the meantime, we're sharing some of our favourite quotes from the book below...

 

Dorothy Parker quote
"I hate writing, I love having written." Dorothy Parker
Maya Angelou quote
"Nothing will work unless you do." Maya Angelou
Matt Haig
"A first draft is the beginning of the end. But the end lasts for ever." Matt Haig
Zadie Smith
"Try to read your own work as a stranger would read it, or even better, as an enemy would." Zadie Smith

 

Whether you're looking for or a reminder to keep going when the words won't come easily, Writers on Writing brings together words of wisdom and withering wit from famous, and infamous, writers across the ages!

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Areas of interest

Replies

“All writers are vain, selfish, and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives there lies a mystery. Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.”, George Orwell

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Simon
James
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Simon James
30/09/2021

“In the deepest hour of the night, confess to yourself that you would die if you were forbidden to write. And look deep into your heart where it spreads its roots, the answer, and ask yourself: ‘Must I write?’ ”, Rainer Maria Rilke

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Simon
James
140 points
Developing your craft
Fiction
Comic
Short stories
Competitions, opportunities and groups
The writing process
Developing your idea
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Simon James
30/09/2021

“Delay is natural to a writer. He is like a surfer — he bides his time, waits for the perfect wave on which to ride in. Delay is instinctive for him. He waits for the surge (of emotion? of strength? of courage?) that will carry him along. I have no warm-up exercises, other than to take an occasional drink.” — E.B. White, The Paris Review, 1969

Profile picture for user SimonJJames
Simon
James
140 points
Developing your craft
Fiction
Comic
Short stories
Competitions, opportunities and groups
The writing process
Developing your idea
Style
Literary agents
Synopsis
Simon James
30/09/2021