Top 100 I Write Because Quotes
#2. For me, movies and television are interesting because they are the dominant storytelling form of our time. My first love will always be fiction, and especially novels, but I'm a writer ... I write poetry and essays and criticism and I'd love to write a whole play, and sometimes I even write scripts.
Jess Walter
#3. I can shoot off my big mouth and write my shows and run my shows, and I can recognize how lucky I am because my position is rare and my position is privileged.
Jenji Kohan
#4. If I don't write it, who will? No one; at least not the way I would because the idea is uniquely mine.
Tanika L. Smith
#5. I began to write in the first place because I expected everything to change, and I wanted to have things in writing the way they had been. Just a little things, of course. A little of my little.
William, Saroyan
#6. My favorite way of working is if somebody gives me a piece of music, because I'm quite limited as a player, so it's my favorite thing if somebody gives me a piece of music, and then I can write lyrics and melodies.
Sinead O'Connor
#7. I'm very serious about what I write and who I allow to produce the music, because I want to make sure it's a true album, and not just something pushed out there to create hype and more fame for myself.
Alyson Stoner
#8. It's very common for people to recommend something to me because they're going on what I've already written, when, what really is the case, is that you want to write about something you haven't written about, in ways that you haven't done before.
Tom Stoppard
#9. I personally believe that I was ... a previous life or something ... a previous reincarnation, a bard of some sort, because most of the things I write about are descriptions of places I've never been to.
Marc Bolan
#10. I like writing for other people. I love it. It's great because you write it and then you hand it off to someone else. But in terms of directing, anything I direct will be something I've written or re-written. I'm in no crazy rush to direct.
Nicholas Stoller
#11. I wanted to write a story about a future where everyone has a secret identity, in part because the Internet no longer exists.
Brian K. Vaughan
#12. I write plays because writing dialogue is the only respectable way of contradicting yourself. I put a position, rebut it, refute the rebuttal, and rebut the refutation.
Tom Stoppard
#13. Because I've lived a risky and unconventional life, I don't often struggle for subjects to write about.
Poe Ballantine
#14. I write because that is what I am supposed to do.
Christy Hall
#15. I think I'm able to do so much because writing is what I love to do. So, often when I have free time, I choose to write and edit.
Lauren Oliver
#16. It's not unusual for writers to look backward. Because that's your pool of resources. If you were to write something now, I bet there's a pretty good chance you'd call on your teenage years, your experiences then, stuff you learned then.
Paul McCartney
#17. Because I'm an art historian, I have some experience of writing that comes out of close attention. That's what really art history is. You're looking at something very closely, and you try to write in a meticulous way about it.
Teju Cole
#18. I write slowly, and I write many, many drafts. I probably have to work as hard as anyone, and maybe harder, to finish a poem. I often write a poem over years, because it takes me a long time to figure out what to say and how best to say it.
Philip Schultz
#19. And I used to write novels and little stories and compositions and I - but I put them away because I started acting when I was 17. So there wasn't much time.
Joan Collins
#20. Events don't happen because I write a speech. I am allowed to write a speech because events are going to happen.
David Frum
#21. You don't necessarily have to write to be a poet. Some people work in gas stations and they're poets. I don't call myself a poet, because I don't like the word. I'm a trapeze artist.
Bob Dylan
#22. I used to tell my writing students that they must write the books they wished they could come upon - because then the books they hungered and thirsted for would exist.
Anne Lamott
#23. People come to L.A. because they're chasing that dream of a better life. That's why I came here, because I thought it would be a place where I would find other people like me; people who wanted to write, people who had a dream of being something else. And that proved to be true.
Robert Crais
#24. I think it's hard to really write a song that will educate someone because songs are meant to be ... you don't want to be too didactic in a song because it doesn't make for good music. And I think the role of songs can be to inspire people but there needs to education and prose to back that up.
John Legend
#25. I don't care much for equations myself. This is partly because it is difficult for me to write them down, but mainly because I don't have an intuitive feeling for equations.
Stephen Hawking
#26. I write to raise the curtain on life's endless possibilities. Because you asked, Pourquoi?
Peggy Kopman-Owens
#27. I write because I like to write. I find joy in the texture and tone and rhythm of words. It is a satisfaction like that which follows good and shared love.
John Steinbeck
#28. I used to hang out with grandfather all the time because he used to pick me up from school sometimes, or drive me to my mother's, so I'd be with my grandfather a lot. I used to watch him write his sermons.
Chris Rock
#29. I think everything I write is from an atheist perspective. I mean, it's partly from an atheist perspective because I'm an atheist, and I'm just not really interested in religious-based questions.
Alex Garland
#30. I want to write because I have the urge to excel in one medium of translation and expression of life. I can't be satisfied with the colossal job of merely living. Oh, no, I must order life in sonnets and sestinas and provide a verbal reflector for my 60-watt lighted head.
Sylvia Plath
#31. That's why I write, because life never works except in retrospect. You can't control life, at least you can control your version.
Chuck Palahniuk
#32. I write because the book I want to read has not been written yet.
Richard H.R. Penn
#33. Every writer has his writing technique - what he can and can't do to describe something like war or history. I'm not good at writing about those things, but I try because I feel it is necessary to write that kind of thing.
Haruki Murakami
#34. Usually a feeling of disappointment follows the book, because what I hoped to write is not what I actually accomplished. However, it becomes a motivation to write the next book.
Anita Desai
#35. What I'd really like to write is a romantic comedy. This is my favorite kind of movie. I feel almost embarrassed revealing this, because the genre has been so degraded in the past twenty years that saying you like romantic comedies is essentially an admission of mild stupidity.
Mindy Kaling
#37. I have a horror of the blank page. I simply cannot write on a blank page or screen. Because once I do, I start to fix it, and I never get past the first sentence.
Charles Krauthammer
#38. Because I write intuitively and image-by-image and moment-by-moment, my writing has to be powered by feelings and emotions.
Fred D'Aguiar
#39. I don't go off and sit down and try to write material, because then it's contrived and forced. I just live my life, and I see things in a word or a situation or a concept, and it will create a joke for me.
Steven Wright
#40. I am a writer because I write, an author because I create, a poet because the words are in my soul.
Wesley D. Gray
#41. Is it crazy to say that I sometimes don't understand what I write but I write it anyway, because maybe someone, somewhere, somehow, would feel what I didn't?
Nema Al-Araby
#42. Every story I've written was written because I had to write it. Writing stories is like breathing for me; it is my life.
Ray Bradbury
#43. War and Peace maddens me because I didn't write it myself, and worse, I couldn't.
Jeffrey Archer
#44. Well, when you write about people of a certain age ... we are in a postsexual situation. If I write about younger people then I write sexually, because their drive is sexual. It depends upon the circumstances.
Edward Albee
#45. Why do you write?' Because I love words and stories so much. Because I would be grief stricken every day of my life if I couldn't write. Because I'm obsessed and compelled. Because I'd be utterly useless at anything else.
Jennifer Donnelly
#46. It is not fun singing about losing somebody like that, but at the same time it was easy to write because the memories were so real and vivid and so much a part of who I am.
Vince Gill
#47. Writing is very good for household tasks. Because you'd rather fix a dripping tap or paint an old wall - you'd rather do almost anything than sit and write. I have to reach a point of obsession in order to write, and so I find starting a book incredibly difficult.
Damon Galgut
#48. I had the offer to write books plenty of times during the early stage of my career, and I always kind of just pushed back because it wasn't the right time.
Tim Howard
#49. When I was little, I thought everyone in the world liked to read because it was so fun. But then I realised that was not exactly true. I want other kids to read and write more all over the world, because it helps them to understand things better.
Adora Svitak
#50. I'm a writer. I write not only for a living, I write because I'm a writer.
Gary Jennings
#51. Kids love me because I write stories that tell them about their capacity for evil. I'm one of the few writers who lets you cleanse yourself that way.
Ray Bradbury
#52. I don't travel and tell stories, because that's not the way these days. But I write my books to be read aloud, and I think of myself in that oral tradition.
Louis L'Amour
#53. To try something longer, I entered a half-hour radio drama contest with the national public broadcaster, CBC. To my surprise, I won. And that opened doors in film and television, because that broadcaster was looking to cultivate new Canadian talent, especially women who could write.
Karen Walton
#54. But I love to write music. What I would love to do is give some of the songs I write to someone like Taylor Swift because I feel like she could sing them.
Keegan Allen
#55. I always dread the process of writing because I'm not a writer. I'm an audible guy, I'm a verbal guy. I love to talk. I write a book every couple years, but it just takes everything out of me to get a book out.
T.C. Boyle
#56. I don't really have a style icon but I really admire the way people dress like Gaga, Rihanna and Gwen Stefani. It's good to be inspired by singers who write music and dress incredibly - rather than models and people in the fashion industry who dress immaculately anyway because it's their style.
Ellie Goulding
#57. I won't write my autobiography because I never had an affair with Frank Sinatra, and if I had had, I wouldn't tell anyone.
Celia Johnson
#58. I tend to write about more than one generation because as a child I had contact with more than one generation; it was normal to be around older people.
Joanne Harris
#59. If I write that it was a cold day, you can be sure I know it was a cold day because Pepys told us.
Antonia Fraser
#60. I'm kind of concerned about 'Ego & Hubris' because I'm thinking that people will read it and maybe even be entertained by it, but at the end of it, you know, they'll wonder, 'Why did this guy write this? What was the point of it?'
Harvey Pekar
#61. My dad dying was actually a reason for me to stop music properly for about a year, because he was a big supporter. All I wanted to do was write a song about him and, you know, when something's too fresh, you can't quite word it.
Gin Wigmore
#62. I really like Shakespeare a lot. The characters that he writes for females, I think, are really great and a lot more compelling than what modern writers write, which is weird because they didn't have actresses then.
Julia Stiles
#63. I could not write about 'ordinary people' because I am not in the least interested in them.
H.P. Lovecraft
#64. I wrote you, you are mine," it continued, its voice as hard as its diamond eyes. "But I do not write everything you do and think. I do not write every decision you make. Not because I cannot-but because I will not.
Ashlee Willis
#65. I like writers who seem to write because they have to. You get the feeling of this burning desire to tell a story. I find it in Peter Carey, Nicola Barker, Ali Smith and David Foster Wallace.
Patrick Ness
#66. I like monsters in general - that's what I like to write about. Somebody was joking with me that my body was becoming a manual for a role-playing game because I'm covered in little monsters. That's true. I could easily have more monsters on my skin.
Maria Dahvana Headley
#67. I write because I know that one day I will die, and thus I should experience as many deliberate observations, careful thoughts, wild ideas, and deep emotions as I can before that day occurs.
Amy Tan
#68. Most people assume I write at night because of the kind of books I write, but I can shut out the light with my mind.
Carla H. Krueger
#69. I have to laugh to myself. I don't find it work to write music, because I enjoy it. I'd find an evening of bridge hard work because you have to think like hell, and at the end, you get nothing for it.
Richard Rodgers
#70. It takes a long time to write a book. I'm not going to spend that much time trying to deliver a message. The reason I do it is because I want to understand something myself. It's not a delivery device, it's an inquiry device. Didactic fiction to my mind never works. It backfires.
Ruth Ozeki
#71. They want to know
who I write these poems for.
Tell them it's for all lovers
because I don't see a difference
between our love
and their love.
Kamand Kojouri
#72. What I've learned most clearly from blogs is that the majority of them write about the problems from the outside for a reason - because they are missing the abilities that allow people to move to the inside.
Ryan Holiday
#73. I hope never to retire. I write so many because it's the thing I like to do most - to write. And if you write every day, you just naturally get a lot of books.
Eve Bunting
#74. I hope we find a cure for every major disease, because I'm tired of walking 5K. I'm pretty sure I don't have to sweat for cancer. I'll write a check.
Daniel Tosh
#75. I want to continue to do music and stay on the stage because I love the stage. And I want to continue to write songs.
Ashthon Jones
#76. I always hated...all sad songs. I thought they made happy people miserable. Now I think I understand them better. Bards write them because they can't hold them back. Sadness has got to flow out or it gets stuck and turns bitter.
Jonathan Renshaw
#77. The idea that I'm going to have to sit down to write some fiction where I'm going to have to think of a plot would really scare me, because it would come out a mess.
Tracey Emin
#78. Let's not talk about it any more, but if you still want anything please write to me about it, because I can say what I mean much better on paper.
Anne Frank
#79. The reason I quit being a sales manager over twenty years now is because I hate elevator pitches. I want to write stories and show people what's in them when they read them, not tell them all about it ahead of time.
Kurt Busiek
#80. All I can do is focus on staying true to the style of music I write and sing because that is the only way it's going to come off as honest.
Kip Moore
#81. I write because I always want good to win over evil
Anamika Mishra
#82. I do write about people who are complex and are striving with something and can't quite get past their own stuff, which would be a proxy for myself because that's what the deal is with me.
Eric Bogosian
#83. One of the reasons that I think I do love to write is because I did have a difficult childhood and not so great teenage years. It always helped me escape from my problems.
Meg Cabot
#84. Writing isn't a job so much as a compulsion. I've been writing since I was very young because for some strange reason, I must write, and also because when I write, I feel more alive and closer to the world than when I'm not writing.
Siri Hustvedt
#85. I came across humanity in Istanbul, and all I know about life comes from Istanbul, and definitely, I am writing about Istanbul. I also love the city because I live there, it has formed me, and it's me. Of course it is natural. If somebody lived all his life in Delhi, he will write about Delhi.
Orhan Pamuk
#86. I'm like a unicorn; I'm a midlist writer who hasn't done anything else but write. But because I wasn't amazingly famous, I didn't become Stephanie Meyer, or even a huge literary name like a Jonathan Franzen or a Joshua Ferris.
Gabrielle Zevin
#87. When Nandita expressed a desire to write about me, I couldn't stop her because she's my wife, but she has forgotten who she is.
Om Puri
#88. I used to write stories a lot because you had to fill your hours some other way than watching television. So my imagination was vivid, and I used to write a lot of stories. I wrote a novel, which I still have, which is so awful.
Robert Osborne
#89. I'm not trying to say I'm this artist who is all artsy and that I only write music for myself, because I don't. I write music for other people to enjoy, so I think about if it'd be an idea someone else would like.
Conrad Sewell
#90. If someone says something unpleasant, I can't say it doesn't smart a bit. It always does. Someone can take a really nasty swipe if they want because it kind of feels powerful for a person to write in a paper and get that thing out there.
Annie Lennox
#91. No one can learn to love by following a manual and no one can learn to write by following a course. I'm not telling you to find people with different skills from yourself, because writing is no different from any other activity done with joy and enthusiasm.
Paulo Coelho
#92. Everything I write tends to turn into a superhero team, even if I didn't mean for it to. I always start off wanting to be solitary, because a) it's simpler, and b) that isolation is something that I relate to as a storyteller. And then no matter what, I always end up with a team.
Joss Whedon
#93. I write because I can remember and to keep those memories alive. I write for pleasure. I write because I must.
F.M. Burgett
#94. I write because it makes God happy that I write. I sing because it makes God happy that I sing. And if it makes God's people happy, then all the better. But if it fails to do so, it's probably my fault.
Jamey Johnson
#95. I write because I am a Black woman, listening attentively to her people.
Maya Angelou
#96. All the best songs are, I think, the easiest write because they just come out.
Benji Madden
#97. Often one spends weeks trying to write a poem out of the conscious mind that never comes to anything - these are sort of 'ideal' poems that one feels ought to be written, but don't because (I fancy) they lack the vital spark of self-interest. A 'real' poem is a pleasure to write.
Philip Larkin
#98. And I said to him when you learn to read then you learn everything you didnt know before. But when you write you write only what you know allready so patientia Im better off not knowing how to write because the ass is the ass
Umberto Eco
#99. I think if you write for long enough, you eventually have a problem with everything, because you start figuring out where you could be doing better. But as far back as I can trace, I always wrote clear, grammatical prose.
Marie Brennan
#100. I write because it feels good, and I don't have a deadline, and I don't have people telling me what they want me to write. Maybe if I did, I wouldn't be very good at it.
Nikki Reed
Famous Authors
Popular Topics
Scroll to Top
