Whenever I need inspiration with my writing, get frustrated, or just am having one of those days, I often look at some quotes that are relevant to authors. Here are some of my favorites! Maybe they’ll speak to you as much as they do to me.
“The worst thing you write is better than the best thing you didn’t write.” Unknown
“Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” E.L. Doctorow
“Becoming the reader is the essence of becoming a writer.” John O’Hara
“However great a man’s natural talent may be, the act of writing cannot be learned all at once.” Jean Jacques Rousseau
“I get a fine warm feeling when I’m doing well, but that pleasure is pretty much negated by the pain of getting started each day. Let’s face it, writing is hell.” William Styron
“Success comes before work only in the dictionary.” Anonymous
“When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.” Franklin D. Roosevelt
“No one put a gun to your head and ordered you to become a writer. One writes out of his own choice and must be prepared to take the rough spots along the road with a certain equanimity, though allowed some grinding of the teeth.” Stanley Ellin
“The public is the only critic whose opinion is worth anything at all.” Mark Twain
“I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is to try to please everyone.” Bill Cosby
“Writing is like prostitution. First you do it for the love of it, then you do it for a few friends, and finally you do it for money.”
Moliere
“Your manuscript is both good and original. But the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good.”
Samuel Johnson
“Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.” Rudyard Kipling
“It took me fifteen years to discover that I had no talent for writing, but I couldn’t give it up because by that time I was too famous.” Robert Charles Benchley
“Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.” Albert Einstein