Top 100 How Do You Write Quotes
#1. How do you write when you're not miserable? The solution, of course, is to make yourself miserable about not writing.
Jerry Stahl
#2. How do you write about something, even something real and painful-like suicide-when all of the writing that's been done on that subject has robbed you of any originality of expression?
Jeffrey Eugenides
#3. People say, "How do you write songs?" I say, "Patience." I may have a track that's hot, but no words. I'll just let it sit for years, because I know they're going to meet. They'll find it.
Ben Harper
#4. People always ask, 'How do you write so many books?' And I say, I work a lot. I work six or seven days a week.
R.L. Stine
#5. How do you solve a mystery? How do you write a book? The techniques for starting both are surprisingly similar. Find an intriguing question and, pen and dagger tucked under cloak, search for clues.
Claire Cameron
#6. How do you write a letter on the spur of the moment? And then post it? On the spur of the moment?
Edward Davies
#8. How do you write for children? I really have never figured that out. So I decided to just ignore it
Maurice Sendak
#9. Everyone said, 'Well, you're very old for a first novel,' and I said, 'How do you write when you haven't lived? How do you write when you have no experience? How do you write straight out of university?'
Kate Atkinson
#10. Someone asked me, 'How do you write a book?' I said, 'I live with a pen in one hand.
Carla H. Krueger
#11. How do you write? You write, man, you write, that's how ... If you practice an art faithfully it will make you wise, and most writers can use a little wising up.
William, Saroyan
#12. Every year I tell myself that I'm not going to read any reviews and then I do. We're all human and when I read something negative it hurts. I think when you write it's part of the game, you're going to get some good reviews and some bad reviews and that's how it goes. I don't write for the reviews.
Jodi Picoult
#13. Don't lament so much about how your career is going to turn out. You don't have a career. You have a life. Do the work. Keep the faith. Be true blue. You are a writer because you write. Keep writing and quit your bitching. Your book has a birthday. You don't know what it is yet.
Cheryl Strayed
#14. I think it's important to let each thing you write teach you how to write it. You must listen to what you do. Let it be in control. I don't step in until I know what it demands of me.
Jill Alexander Essbaum
#15. For me now, it's about what you would write and what you wouldn't write, and that's how I select what I am going to do. It can be quite nice being brought a concept by a studio for me to work on.
Neil Jordan
#16. You're writing your life as you go - the question becomes, how do you want to write your life?
Hill Harper
#17. Ask yourself, "Why do I want to be in shape?" and write all ... Put your list everywhere to constantly remind yourself why you're doing what you're doing and how your life will improve by becoming fitter.
Jillian Michaels
#18. The neatest thing about television is that they write for you ... They find out what you can do, what you do best, how it works, and how they can use you.
Ann B. Davis
#19. Live your life like the novels that you love to read. Only do the things that when you look back, you are proud of what you accomplished, feel good about how you treated others and didn't regret not doing to trying something. Every day is a new chapter, write something.
Taylor Berke
#20. Everytime I write, it's a catharsis. Even if I never got paid for it, I'd feel compelled to do it. And that's what makes a true writer. It's not how many readers you have or how many publishing contracts. Do you love to write? Then you're an author. No one can take that away from you.
Piper Vaughn
#21. One thing that worried me was how writers get categorized and so they end up having to write the same kind of book again and again. That is fine if it is what you want to do, but I would rather be locked in the trunk of my car with a weasel than write the same book every three years until I die.
Justin Cronin
#22. The central virtue of a liberal education is that it teaches you how to write, and writing makes you think. Whatever you do in life, the ability to write clearly, cleanly, and reasonably quickly will prove to be an invaluable skill.
Fareed Zakaria
#23. One of the things about the arts that is so important is that in the arts you discover the only way to learn how to do it is by doing it. You can't write by reading a book about it. The only way to learn how to write a book is to sit down and try to write a book
David McCullough
#24. I don't think age has much to do with writing. I think it's something that can certainly improve in time, but there's no age limit on how old you need to be to write well.
Sandy Hall
#25. I don't actually talk about my books much, because I find if I talk about them I don't want to write them anymore. I write to find out what happens. You know how you read a book? That's what I'm doing except I'm just doing it a lot slower because it takes a lot longer to do.
Charles De Lint
#26. When we put the pen to paper, we articulate things in our life that we may have felt vague about. Before you write about something, somebody says, 'How do you feel?' and you say, 'Oh, I feel okay.' Then you write about it, and you discover you don't feel okay.
Julia Cameron
#27. Remember each new day you get to turn a page in your life and write your own story. So how do you choose to write it?
Tammy Mentzer Brown
#28. Never write when you are not in the mood; when you are not feeling it. If the words do not flow freely, and come to you almost magically, then put it down and do not force yourself to write in the book, or it will reflect in your writing and it will be terribly obvious.
Wayne Hoss
#29. People ask me all the time why I write. I do realize that one day I will have to answer this question, most likely in front of a large crowd. But how do you tell the truth when you struggle just to write it? How do you admit that the words are just salve to the things you are too afraid to say?
Kacey Vanderkarr
#30. I'm close to my audience. I think I have more tools in my box than other guys who might try it. Also, I know how to do this stuff. I know how to write and shoot and edit. I'm technically adept and that helped with the website. You need a big skill set.
Louis C.K.
#31. I never believed I could write anything. No way - write a whole story? Figuring out all that plotting and symbolism? How do you foreshadow things?
Carol Berg
#32. The only real rule I know in writing is, Don't be boring. Sleeping people don't read a word you write or hear a thing you say. How can they? They are asleep. So don't put anyone to sleep, and you will probably do okay.
Max D. Adams
#33. Read, read, read. Read everything
trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You'll absorb it.
Then write. If it's good, you'll find out. If it's not, throw it out of the window.
William Faulkner
#34. Do you have any idea how hard a story is to write? My brain is jumpy, and my heart doesn't know where to live. Is Male is such an imperfect narrator, but he will try to finish his tale.
Jenny Hubbard
#35. If you write, one of the questions you're always trying to answer is, Where do you get your ideas? And, if you write, you know how pointless a question this is and how difficult it is to answer.
Lynn Abbey
#36. I write what I want and how I want. Reviews do not need to be condescending nor do they need to tell me to read your book (if you're a fellow author). Either you like the books or you don't. That's all there is to it.
Amanda Byrd
#37. I have to make myself write, sometimes. In the space between poems, you somehow forget how to do it, where to begin. It was good to be task - based for a while. I just came downstairs each day, picked the one I was going to do that day, and wrote.
Simon Armitage
#38. Creative writing teachers should be purged until every last instructor who has uttered the words 'Write what you know' is confined to a labor camp. Please, talented scribblers, write what you don't. The blind guy with the funny little harp who composed The Iliad, how much combat do you think he saw?
P. J. O'Rourke
#39. Take your situation and pretend it is not happening to you. Pretend it is not important, that it doesn't matter. How much easier would it be for you to know what to do? How much more quickly and dispassionately could you size up the scenario and its options? You could write it off, greet it calmly.
Ryan Holiday
#40. Do you know how long it took me to write 'For a Few Dollars More'? Nine days.
Luciano Vincenzoni
#41. You know how it is with writing. You just write what you want to write. There's no way to predict what is good or bad. You just do what you think is funny, and either it works or you're finished. It's impossible to predict anything.
Colin Quinn
#42. You have to insulate yourself - I'm talking about from everything, people can be talking to you and you won't hear 'em - that's how you write a song. And I haven't been able to do that over here 'cause I'm so busy and then, when I am off, I want to get away from music.
Mel Tillis
#43. Honestly, I feel pretty awed anytime I meet just about any writer. I get how hard it is to write and make a living from it, but there's also this almost magical force you need to tap into, and I'm amazed by anyone who can do it.
Jennifer McMahon
#44. Life is the greatest chance that has been given to all of us. So how do you choose to live your life? You've got a pen. Write it down.
Kcat Yarza
#45. Write about what you care about. If you do that, you're probably going to do your best writing, reach off the page and touch the reader. How are you going to make the reader care if you don't care yourself?
Jerry Spinelli
#46. Writing every day is very, very helpful, but set the bar at a place where you have no excuse: It doesn't matter how tired you are, how late it is, you will do it. So if you say, "I will write one hundred words a day" - set the bar there, and then you can actually get over that bar.
N.D. Wilson
#47. They say shock therapy is good for some things, but it didn't do me any good. It was a pretty primitive treatment at the time - once they gave it to you, you couldn't remember how long you'd been there. It knocked me back for a long time. I thought I'd never write again.
Don Everly
#48. You have to take your ego out of it and say, do I want people to be obsequious to me or do I want to write good books? If it's the latter, you have to take criticism. It's annoying, but that's how to do good stuff; listen to other people.
Denise Mina
#49. I go to school here, same as you,' Han said.
Micah blinked at him stupidly, the drink slowing him down. 'You? Do you even know how to read and write? They can't have lowered the standards that much.'
'Well,' Han said, 'they let you in.
Cinda Williams Chima
#50. Daniel, I was asked of a budding author, how do you know if your story is on track? My answer: I start by knowing my intention, my target. Then, with purpose, I write the scene that unfolds before me, as faithfully as is human. - Daniel LaMonte
Daniel LaMonte
#51. People say sometimes, gosh, that was brave of you to write such-and-such last week. 'Brave?' What do they mean 'brave?' It's right! How could you not write it?
Carl Hiaasen
#52. You can write a song about a girl or you can write a song about walking down the shops, and it's fine. I just try and do something as meaningful as I can without trying to be a pretentious loser because it's genuinely just how I see things.
Matt Corby
#53. But do you know how old I will be by the time I learn to really play the piano / act / paint / write a decent play?
Yes ... the same age you will be if you don't.
Julia Cameron
#54. The thing that's interesting about storytelling is people will say, "How do I write a movie I can get sold in this category?" For God's sake, the first movie that you can get made will be your personal story, because nobody's heard it before.
Joan Tewkesbury
#55. I'm not going to tell a person how to think, don't believe in that. What I want to do, when I write these books, is just to say don't be so sure of yourself. Let me pull the carpet out from underneath you, and let's see if you can still find the footing.
Jodi Picoult
#56. You do try to write songs that you feel like people can relate to and you try to be as honest as you can so that people hear your records and they feel like, "Oh, my god. This is exactly how I feel. I went through this."
Sevyn Streeter
#57. Many people don't have an outlet for their feelings or how they can express life and not everybody in a relationship is the kind of person who wants to. But if you can write, you can find a good way to do it.
Cameron Crowe
#58. How do you learn to write? You sit your ass down in a chair, in front of a laptop, for ten years. Period.
Sean Beaudoin
#59. You do not learn how to write novels in a writing program. You learn how by leading an interesting life. Open yourself up to all experience. Let life pour through you the way light pours through leaves.
Pat Conroy
#60. If you look at the body of any writers' work, you can figure out the questions that animate them. I think that is what real writers do. They don't tell people how to live or what to think. They write in order to try to answer their own deepest questions.
Isobelle Carmody
#61. English and Gym. That's it. Look, do you know how difficult it is to write about being at school convincingly? It's been years since Stephfordy graduated, so it'll save us all a lot of time and effort if we just stick to two real subjects...
Stephfordy Mayo
#62. Learn how to program and play lots of games. If you find yourself capable of writing a game, someday you'll be capable of writing a really good game. My dad's a writer, and when you ask him how to learn to write, he says, "write." So basically, do it and keep doing it until you get good.
Fred Haslam
#63. I write about power, that's my real subject - how you get it, what you do with it, how you abuse it. I'm equally wary of liberals and conservatives.
Rene Balcer
#64. I just can't seem to write songs about peace and love. Yeah right, how do you get that?
Siobhan Fahey
#65. The last thing reporters and editors want to be told is what to do and how to write. They don't want to be some politically correct, Orwellian, kind of like "you're telling me how to write about ... ?"
Jose Antonio Vargas
#66. No matter how many books you've written, whenever you sit down to write a new book, you always feel the same challenge - how do you shape this story into a book that people are going to love.
Cassandra Clare
#67. Even when you write it, someone's got to play it. So if you can play it and bypass all the rest of the things, you're still doing as great as someone that has spent forty years trying to find out how to do that. I'm really pro-human beings, pro-expression of everything.
Ornette Coleman
#68. The only way to write is well and how you do it is your own damn business.
A.J. Liebling
#69. 'How long do you want me to stay in there so you can talk about me behind my back?' Zak called.
'A couple of hours. I could write a book about you,' Logan shot back.
'Make sure you make it clear my dick's bigger than yours.'
Barbara Elsborg
#70. The preoccupation of the novelist: how to capture the living moments, was answered by the diary. You write while you are alive. You do not preserve them in alcohol until the moment you are ready to write about them.
Anais Nin
#71. When my syndicated show got canceled, the next day I still knew how to write jokes. That was a huge revelation. Because at first you think, "I won't have any shelter! What am I gonna do? The sun is hot. Very thirsty."
Jon Stewart
#72. If you want to write and can't figure out how to do it, try this: Pick an amount of time to sit at your desk every day. Start with twenty minutes, say, and work up as quickly as possible to as much time as you can spare. Do you really want to write? Sit for two hours a day.
Ann Patchett
#73. You know, I used to say, when people say, 'How do you think about what to write about in the poems every week?' And I say, 'Well, I have to turn it in on Monday, so on Sunday nights I turn the shower to iambic pentameter and it sort of works out that way.'
Calvin Trillin
#74. Maybe you didn't need to know anything special to write a work of fiction. Maybe you didn't need to delve into some kind of life question you knew you'd lived. Perhaps your subconscious would do the job for you, if only you dared to dream.
L.L. Barkat
#75. Write. Write every day. Write honestly. Write something that doesn't exist, and you wish did. Read. Learn. Study. Watch people. Listen to what they say, listen to how they say it and listen to what they do not say. Surprise yourself. Scare yourself.
Brian Michael Bendis
#76. It is all very well for you to write simply and the simpler the better. But do not start to think so damned simply. Know how complicated it is and then state it simply.
Ernest Hemingway,
#77. You're never confident. You go in fear and trembling every day. It would be awfully nice to think that you know how to write a novel. But what you know is the novel you just wrote. You don't have the slightest notion how to write the one you're going to do next.
Wallace Stegner
#78. You ordinary people who read and do not write, who 'like to read' and know nothing of the sufferings of writers, how fortunate you are!
Joyce Carol Oates
#79. You remember how you were taught to write. Your mother put a pencil in your hand, took your hand in hers, and began to move it. Since you did not know at all what she meant to do, you left your hand completely free in hers. This is like the power of God in our lives.
Anthony Of Sourozh
#80. Your ability to name every single variation of Kryptonite and every first issue in which it appears is a great pop quiz skill, but is not a great writing skill, all right? So just because you can do that doesn't mean you know how to write.
Greg Rucka
#81. She was in awe of all his work. 'How do you do it?" she asked.
He smiled and said, 'By loving you.
Kamand Kojouri
#82. The usual run of children's books left me cold, and at the age of six I decided to write a book of my own. I managed the first line, 'I am a swallow.' Then I looked up and asked, 'How do you spell telephone wires?
Bruce Chatwin
#83. Sometimes you have intuitive insight about how you think things are going to be, and you write that. Other times you fantasize completely, which has nothing to do with predicting the future.
Ray Bradbury
#84. Creativity is very much like literacy. We take it for granted that nearly everybody can learn to read and write. If a person can't read or write, you don't assume that this person is incapable of it, just that he or she hasn't learned how to do it. The same is true of creativity.
Ken Robinson
#85. O, how I faint when I of you do write, Knowing a better spirit doth use your name, And in the praise thereof spends all his might To make me tongue-tied speaking of your fame.
William Shakespeare
#86. I have architects write to me and ask me: How do you - and what do you do to - design the magic thing? I answer that very carefully. It's not necessarily about what you do, but the clients you do it for. You should write to Target, not me.
Michael Graves
#87. You know how before you buy a house you hire someone to come check it out and write a homebuyer's report? Someone should do that for husbands. Before you get married, you should have a complete inspection to find out what's broken, if it's fixable, and how much it will cost to repair.
Richard Paul Evans
#88. I'll write you a check. I'll write you a check. How do you spell Sheamus?
Santino Marella
#89. Ok, let me just write that down for you since you seem to think I'm you personal assistant," Sally responded, her tone clipped.
"You ever noticed how assistant starts with ass? Do you think that's a coincidence?" Jen shrugged her shoulders as she raised her eyebrows at Sally.
Quinn Loftis
#90. I've concluded that getting the categories right is an absolutely crucial step to building useful management theory, and unfortunately too few writers do this. You've got to engage in serious scholarship, and then figure out how to write it in a way that lots of people can understand.
Clayton Christensen
#91. Never think you can't do something. I definitely never thought I could write a book, and even after I started writing it, I was like, 'Oh my God, how am I gonna write a book?' Just set your sights high and reach for the stars. Go live your dreams, and never think you can't.
Connor Franta
#92. What do you really want? Sit down and write it out on a piece of paper, write it in the present tense. You might begin by writing, 'I am so happy and grateful now that ... ' and then explain how you want your life to be in every area.
Bob Proctor
#93. Take care that you never spell a word wrong. Always before you write a word, consider how it is spelled, and, if you do not remember, turn to a dictionary. It produces great praise to a lady to spell well. to his daughter Martha
Thomas Jefferson
#94. Honestly, as hard a profession as acting is, I think music is even harder. Acting, you're like a leech, because someone else does the hard part for you. They write it for you, then the director tells you what to do. You really just need to know how to pay attention, follow instructions.
Michael Shannon
#95. What is poetry? Do not enquire. The secret dies by prying. How does the heart beat? I fainted when I saw it on the screen, opening and closing like a flower ... Poetry is like this, it is life moving, terrible, vivid. Look the other way when you write, or you might faint.
Elizabeth Smart
#96. People might ask me, What do you propose instead? I propose nothing. I am a mere novelist, I just write about the world as I see it. It is not my job to transform it. I cannot transform it all by myself, and I wouldn't even know how to. I limit myself to saying what I believe the world to be.
Jose Saramago
#97. Nobody sits down and says, 'Well, I'm going to write a bad book.' They sit down to write a great book, but it doesn't always turn out like that. The writer may do his best and still write a so-so book, and other times, it just flows easily. But I don't know how you can control that.
Gilbert Morris
#98. Write for yourself, not for a perceived audience. If you do, you'll mostly fall flat on your face, because it's impossible to judge what people want. And you have to read. That's how you learn what is good writing and what is bad. Then the main thing is application. It's hard work.
Wilbur Smith
#99. I always run into these Ph.D.s. They write and write and write about sustainable development. Then these guys ask me, 'But, how do you do it?' They are scared to death to do anything.
Jaime Lerner
#100. I am so happy that I didn't go to school and I didn't have anyone to tell me how to position my fingers on the piano correctly. And what you do with music and what is the correct way to write it and what is not the correct way to write it.
Yanni
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