"What is written without effort is in generally read without pleasure." --Samuel Johnson
"I often have to write a hundred pages or more before there's a paragraph that's alive." --Philip Roth
"If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn't brood. I'd type a little faster." --Isaac Asimov
"Writing is the only thing that, when I do it, I don't feel I should be doing something else." --Gloria Steinem
"It is worth mentioning, for future reference, that the creative power which bubbles so pleasantly in beginning a new book quiets down after a time, and one goes on more steadily. Doubts creep in. Then one becomes resigned. Determination not to give in, and the sense of an impending shape keep one at it more than anything." --Virginia Woolf
"But words are things, and a small drop of ink,
Falling, like dew, upon a thought, produces
That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think. "
--Lord Byron
"If you read good books, when you write, good books will come out of you." --Natalie Goldberg
"I think I write much better if I'm flowing. At first it's a bit jagged, awkward, but then there's a point where there's a click and you suddenly become quite fluent. I don't write well when I'm sitting there sweating about every single phrase." --Doris Lessing
"Sometimes I believe these books are already written and my job is simply to allow them to come through me. My job is to get out of my own way so that I can let the process take care of me." --Sue Grafton
"I am a writer who came of a sheltered life. A sheltered life can be a daring life as well. For all serious daring starts from within." --Eudora Welty
"The talent for writing is largely the talent for living, and it is utterly independent of knowledge." --Willa Cather
"What will be best in your writing is what you really do not know now. If you knew it all it would not be creation but dictation." --Gertrude Stein
"It's one thing to have an idea, but it's quite another to trust your idea and follow where it leads. Following your fascinations means taking risks and venturing out from the safe harbor to the open seas." --Gail McMeekin
"What an author likes to write most is his signature on the back of a check." --Brendan Francis
I hope you've enjoyed the words of wisdom from the pens of authors themselves. These are just some of my favorites from the huge collection I've amassed over the years. Please take a moment to post your comments and some of your favorite writer quotes. Also, if you have a print copy of
4Ps to Publishing to Success,you can read some of my all-time favorites at the section and chapter openers.
