- You'll probably notice a common theme about all of these next quotes from writers – if you wish to write a book, you better get reading! Here are some of our favorite quotes about reading and books from a variety of authors.
- If you read good books, when you write, good books will come out of you. Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones
- There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you. Maya Angelou
- There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve, the fear of failure. Paulo Coelho
- A blank piece of paper is God's way of telling us how hard it is to be God. Sidney Sheldon
- You fail only if you stop writing. Ray Bradbury
- In general there's no point in writing hopeless novels. We all know we're going to die; what's important is the kind of men and women we are in the face of this. Anne Lamott
- Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall. Confucius
- Some days I'm lucky to squeeze out a page of copy that pleases me, but I get as many as six or seven pages on a very good day; the average is probably three pages. Dean Koontz
- 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
- There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are. Somerset Maugham
- I can shake off everything as I write. My sorrows disappear, my courage is reborn. Anne Frank
- 90 percent perfect and shared with the world always changes more lives than 100 percent perfect and stuck in your head. Jon Acuff
- Genius gives birth, talent delivers. What Rembrandt or Van Gogh saw in the night can never be seen again. Born writers of the future are amazed already at what they're seeing now, what we'll all see in time for the first time, and then see imitated many times by made writers. Jack Kerouac
- If something isn't working, if you have a story that you've built and it's blocked and you can't figure it out, take your favorite scene, or your very best idea or set-piece, and cut it. It's brutal, but sometimes inevitable. Joss Whedon
- Passion is energy. Feel the power that comes from focusing on what excites you. Oprah Winfrey
- Do what you can with all you have, wherever you are. Theodore Roosevelt
- Genius gives birth, talent delivers. What Rembrandt or Van Gogh saw in the night can never be seen again. Born writers of the future are amazed already at what they're seeing now, what we'll all see in time for the first time, and then see imitated many times by made writers. Jack Kerouac
- Success is going from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm. Winston Churchill
- You can't fail if you don't quit. You can't succeed if you don't start. Michael Hyatt
- I write to discover what I know. Flannery O'Connor
- I do not think that there is any other quality so essential to success of any kind as the quality of perseverance. It overcomes almost everything, even nature. John D. Rockefeller
- Don't try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say. It's the one and only thing you have to offer. Barbara Kingsolver
- It took me fifteen years to discover I had no talent for writing, but I couldn't give it up because by that time I was too famous. Robert Benchley
- When I say work I only mean writing. Everything else is just odd jobs. Margaret Laurence
- All that I hope to say in books, all that I ever hope to say, is that I love the world. E.B. White
- You learn by writing short stories. Keep writing short stories. The money's in novels, but writing short stories keeps your writing lean and pointed. Larry Niven
- Everywhere I go I'm asked if I think the university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them. There's many a best-seller that could have been prevented by a good teacher. Flannery O'Connor
- I'm very lucky to write for children, because I don't have to deal with popular culture. I can just deal with core fundamental issues: jealousy, love, hatred, sadness, joy, wanting to drive a bus. Mo Willems
- I'm not sure a bad person can write a good book. If art doesn't make us better, then what on earth is it for. Alice Walker
- You don't actually have to write anything until you've thought it out. This is an enormous relief, and you can sit there searching for the point at which the story becomes a toboggan and starts to slide. Marie de Nervaud
- When you are pouring yourself into your work and bringing your unique perspective and skills to the table, then you are adding value that only you are capable of contributing. Todd Henry
- Do you want to tell a story? Grow a heart. Grow two. Now, with the second heart, smash the first one into bits. Gross, right? A bloody pulpy liquid mess. Look at it, try to make sense of it. Realize you can't. Because there is no sense. Charles Yu, How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe
- It's none of their business that you have to learn to write. Let them think you were born that way. Ernest Hemingway
- Yes, in all my research, the greatest leaders looked inward and were able to tell a good story with authenticity and passion. Deepak Chopra
- One writes out of one thing only—one's own experience. Everything depends on how relentlessly one forces from this experience the last drop, sweet or bitter, it can possibly give. This is the only real concern of the artist, to recreate out of the disorder of life that order which is art. James Baldwin, Notes of a Native Son
- And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom. Anaïs Nin
- Not a wasted word. This has been a main point to my literary thinking all my life. Hunter S. Thompson
- I'm sure I could write endlessly about nothing. If only I had nothing to say. Patti Smith, M Train
- Read a thousand books, and your words will flow like a river. Lisa
Amazing Quotes for Writers for Everyday Motivation
It's none of their business that you have to learn to write. Let them think you were born that way. Ernest Hemingway
