Quotes About Being A Good Writer

#1. Being a good writer doesn't make you a good reporter, it takes hustle.

David

#2. Nobody objects to a woman being a good writer or sculptor or geneticist if at the same time she manages to be a good wife, a good mother, good-looking, good-tempered, well-dressed, well-groomed, and unaggressive.

Marya Mannes

#3. There is no one like you on this planet. Not everyone may have the gift of being a good writer, but each one of us has a story to tell.

K.J. Kilton

#4. Being a good writer meant he could make a living and do as he chose. Being a great one would bring responsibilities and expectations he had no desire to face.

Nora Roberts

#5. There is no motivation higher than being a good writer.

Tom Wolfe

#6. And it's just anathema to being a writer. It's not healthy. But in another way, when I'm writing, what it's about for me is being good on the page. None of that noise could change the way I feel about my writing. Which is not always particularly positive.

Zadie Smith

#7. Being a writer can be isolating. It's good to be among readers and booksellers.

Lev Grossman

#8. I was really bored, pretty antisocial, and not much of a joiner, and people thought that was a problem. I hated high school. In a way, it was good ... I think, for a writer, it's good to be comfortable with being on the outside.

Deborah Ellis

#9. Don't let others discourage you from writing. Your peers will never see your point of view and they don't have to its your story, your journey; but keep writing and become good enough so that they will notice you as the very thing they tried to steer you from. Being a writer.

K.T. Hunter

#10. It's always been hard to call myself a writer. I think a part of me still thinks it's too good to be true.

Sarah Dessen

#11. Most of my success, I feel, comes from being a good editor as opposed to a great writer.

Tucker Max

#12. How do I know I'm a good writer? Every single time I arrive or leave my hometown, I'm the only passenger always being checked for drugs.

Daniel Marques

#13. When some tech or design issues comes up, it annoys me but I recognize that tech and design are part of being a professional writer, so I embrace the suck for the greater good.

Mike Cernovich

#14. I'm good at being by myself. I guess if you're a writer you get used to that.

Chuck Klosterman

#15. The drudgery of being a professional writer comes in trying to make good days out of bad days and in squeezing out the words when they won't just flow.

Benjamin Cavell

#16. If I behave like a good boy and take my Prozac ... then I won't be able to write anymore.
I'll have Writer's block from not being able to communicate with the characters in my mind.

Timothy Pina

#17. Even though I had a deep conviction that I was good at writing, and that in some way I already was a writer, this conviction was completely independent of my having ever written anything, or being able to imagine ever writing anything, that I thought anyone would like to read.

Elif Batuman

#18. Being a good observer is a great tool to have as a writer, just taking the world in.

Lauren Conrad

#19. My mum and dad were speaking all the time about, 'In Sudan we do this,' and 'In Egypt we do that,' so I was very aware of cultural differences. I was confused growing up; it gave me a feeling of being an outsider watching others. But I think this is good for a writer.

Leila Aboulela

#20. Being a professional writer is a lot like being a hooker. You'd better find out if you're any good at it before you start charging for it.

Sharyn McCrumb

#21. You don't make a decision about being a writer. There was a point, aged 21, when it became clear that this is who I am. The choice is how good you are going to be at it and how hard you are going to work.

Philipp Meyer

#22. I'll never be a good writer, and no chance of being a good actor.

Matthew Vaughn

#23. Getting away from being 'a good girl' is important because it's impossible to be a 'good girl' and a writer at the same time.

Lynne Sharon Schwartz

#24. Hemingway was a jerk. I mean he was really a great jerk. He was a good writer, and he did all sorts of things that I would never have the courage to do, but I don't think I'd enjoy being in the same room with him. He's not my kind of person.

Joe Haldeman

#25. Josie thinks that the problem with being a writer is that you miss a lot of your life wondering if the things that happen to you are good enough to use in a story, and most of the time they're not and you have to make shit up anyway.

Katherine Heiny

#26. Maybe because I began as a writer, I have a good ear for dialogue, and maybe being an English major - and that I also read a lot as a kid - if I hear somebody say something that I think's funny, or I find a situation or story, I'll try to work that into the movie.

Owen Wilson

#27. A good writer does not receive anywhere near the number of poison-pen letters that is commonly assumed. Among a hundred jackassesthere are not ten who will admit to being jackasses, and at most one who will put it in writing.

Karl Kraus

#28. The idea of being a writer attracts a good many shiftless people, those who are merely burdened with poetic feelings or afflicted with sensibility.

Flannery O'Connor

#29. Personally, I see little distinction between an artistic mentality and criminality. You couldn't possibly create a compelling story without some wickedness or some fascination with the disgusting. Being good is a hindrance to a writer.

Russell Smith

#30. I always advise children who ask me for tips on being a writer to read as much as they possibly can. Jane Austen gave a young friend the same advice, so I'm in good company there.

J.K. Rowling

#31. I have never pretended to be a great writer. I am totally immodest about being a great reporter and a good news writer. I write fast and I write accurately, nearly as accurately as anybody can be, and that's my skill.

Walter Cronkite

#32. I got a fortune cookie that said, "To remember is to understand." I have never forgotten it. A good judge remembers what it was like to be a lawyer. A good editor remembers being a writer. A good parent remembers what it was like to be a child.

Anna Quindlen

#33. The good thing about being a writer is that you don't need anything except for a laptop. You can really do your own work and if you're not manically compelled to write all the time before you do it professionally, it's probably not a business for you anyway.

Thomas Lennon

#34. I say that being a smart writer doesn't make you a good writer. There's obviously a difference between talent and intelligence. And it may be that at some point intelligence begins to impinge on talent, or talent on intelligence.

Gustavo Perez Firmat

#35. Part of being a fiction writer is being able to imagine how someone else is thinking and feeling. I think I've always been good at that.

Andrew Clements

#36. Being a writer is a good, good thing.

Shannon Hale

#37. Life being so short, and the possible books to write so many, it's good to function by night as well as by day; but would anybody become a writer if they realised at the outset what the working hours were?

Hilary Mantel

#38. If you like to tell stories and compose sentences, and if you work hard at being good at these things, then you are a writer even if you haven't published anything.

Trenton Lee Stewart

#39. I'm a writer! If you work in an office, it dampens you. It makes you fit a routine. The effect of being a writer is not dissimilar to being long-term unemployed. And everyone knows that is not good for you.

Mark Haddon

#40. I don't think of the characters as being good or bad because that doesn't help me as a writer.

Bryan Cogman

#41. I always try to give good ratings to books I have read unless it is really bad. Being a writer I know how a bad rating feels. Sometimes it is better to encourage a writer rather than discourage them. After all the next book they write could be a World Renown novel like Harry Potter.

William Roach

#42. My father was weaned on books. I'm halfway between being weaned on books and weaned on television. And if you're weaned on television, you're not as good a writer as if you were weaned on books.

James Burrows

#43. There's so much shame involved in not being like everyone else. But I learned that the things that made me unique were good. Dealing with problems can be awful. But in the end I got positive results. I don't think I would have been a writer if I didn't have anxiety.

Jenny Lawson

#44. You may think that you don't want to read about the problems of being brought up Mennonite, but the great thing about books is that you'll read anything a good writer wants you to read.

Nick Hornby

#45. When a writer's whole being is poured into a piece of work, there is never enough. The feeling of finally getting to the end of a piece of work, of making it as good as you can at that moment, is more of a relief than anything else, and then you wait for reviews.

Dani Shapiro

#46. I think there's a lot of really good programming on television. What I've noticed, through the years of being a professional writer, is the watering down process of story. You have to market to the masses and not offend anybody.

Lauren Iungerich

#47. You can't be a good writer without being a good thinker.

Andy Rooney

#48. Being broke is not a crime, nor is it proof of one's inadequacy as a writer or as a human being. If you go around with an attitude of implicit apology for being temporarily without funds, it's going to do you more harm than good.

Lawrence Block

#49. Marry somebody you love and who thinks you being a writer's a good idea.

Richard Ford

#50. A good writer can fake being an expert in anything - even men's underwear.

Greg Dybec