Quotes About The Joy Of Writing

#1. I write for the joy of writing. It is the air I breathe and the joy of my life.

Charlene Iverson

#2. I think that the joy of writing a novel is the self-exploratio n that emerges and also that wonderful feeling of playing God with the characters. When I sit down at my writing desk, time seems to vanish ... I think the most important thing for a writer is to be locked in a study.

Erica Jong

#3. Part of the joy of writing for kids is that you have to have a real adventure story. You can get really involved in the fantastic in a way that perhaps you can't so much in adult fiction.

Edward Carey

#4. The joy of writing drama is putting yourself into different people's heads.

Andrew Davies

#5. I enjoy writing, sometimes; I think that most writers will tell you about the agony of writing more than the joy of writing, but writing is what I was meant to do.

Leon Uris

#6. The joy of writing is the fullness of existence.

Lailah Gifty Akita

#7. Lying in wait, set to pounce on the blank page,
are letters up to no good,
clutches of clauses so subordinate
they'll never let her get away.
From, The Joy of Writing, Wislawa Szymborska

Wislawa Szymborska

#8. The joy of writing.
The power of preserving.
Revenge of a mortal hand.

Wislawa Szymborska

#9. I always talk to my students about the need to write for the joy of writing. I try to sort of disaggregate the acclaim from the act of writing.

Kim Edwards

#10. I loved words. I love to sing them and speak them and even now, I must admit, I have fallen into the joy of writing them.

Anne Rice

#11. I don't know if nature is a direct literary influence on my writing, but it is certainly important to me. I take great joy in writing about it. It is something I have taken with me from my childhood; the body exposed to the threat of the physical world and at the same time being at home in it.

Per Petterson

#12. I would say that writing, both the act of writing, and of course reading of other people's work is, for me, supreme joy.

James Lipton

#13. Success means being heard and don't stand there and tell me that you are indifferent to being heard. You may write for the joy of it, but the act of writing is not complete in itself. It has to end in its audience.

Flannery O'Connor

#14. The writer doesn't write for the reader. He doesn't write for himself, either. He writes to serve ... something. Somethingness. The somethingness that is sheltered by the wings of nothingness - those exquisite, enveloping, protecting wings.

Joy Williams

#15. As a media member, my goal is to inform the American fans of persons of character. It's a joy for me, either writing a good story or telling a story on video.

Dominique Dawes

#16. I had learned a little about writing from Soldier's Pay - how to approach language, words: not with seriousness so much as an essayist does, but with a kind of alert respect, as you approach dynamite; even with joy, as you approach women: perhaps with the same secretly unscrupulous intentions.

William Faulkner

#17. Through my writing, I want to build an "immortal fountain of love" where everyone can come to dance and enjoy the colorful "flow of joy" and sing along with the music of love.

Debasish Mridha

#18. Writing isn't about racing to the finish line; it's about finding joy in each step of the process. If a writer focuses on the journey, the destination will take care of itself.

Christopher Meyerhoeffer

#19. When it is going well, it is the best job [writing] in the world. For those few hours, you are god, in control of everything. However, for me, the great joy of writing is that it has allowed me to travel the world in search of stories.

Michael Scott

#20. I love being a mom. But there's a certain kind of tedium to your life when your kid is young. Writing allows you to wander when your kid is napping in a crib ten feet away. So that's the great joy of writing fiction for me.

Gayle Forman

#21. He started writing poetry again, but it didn't come as easily. It was hard now to get past the self-consciousness - the silliness, really - of being such a well-established adult applying himself, seriously, to such a youthful joy.

B.J. Novak

#22. She rested her head on Esther's shoulder and let the fuzzy warmth of her hug flow through her. It was the kind of warmth that clicked your bones back into place, smoothed out your muscles and made your blood sing a soft lullaby all the way around your body.

Joy Cowley

#23. Perhaps what matters is not the human pain or joy at all but, rather, the play of shadow and light on a live body, the harmony of trifles assembled ... in a unique and inimitable way.

Vladimir Nabokov

#24. Often when he was teaching me to write in Greek, the Fox would say, "Child, to say the very thing you really mean, the whole of it, nothing more or less or other than what you really mean; that is the whole art and joy of words." A glib saying.

C.S. Lewis

#25. Writing comes from the fear of failure not from the joy of winning.

Debasish Mridha

#26. No amount of therapy can replace the joy of revenge writing.

Mylo Carbia

#27. There is in writing the constant joy of sudden discovery, of happy accident.

H.L. Mencken

#28. To me, the great joy of writing is discovering. Most writers are told to write about what they know, but I still love the adventure of going out and reporting on things I don't know about.

Tom Wolfe

#29. I have wrought my simple plan
If I give one hour of joy
To the boy who's half a man,
Or the man who's half a boy.

Arthur Conan Doyle

#30. The best kind of happiness is a habit you're passionate about.

Shannon L. Alder

#31. The whole joy of writing comes from the opportunity to go over it and make it good, one way or another.

James Salter

#32. My dad would go to work every day and write in a room full of funny people. He enjoyed it. I know great writers who find the process agonising but to me, writing has always been sheer joy.

Joss Whedon

#33. Invariably, it is this for which I write: the joy ... of an argument firmly made, like a nail straightly driven, its head flush to the plank.

George Will

#34. I love writing on trains. The joy of being a writer is it's all in your head; you don't need materials apart from the laptop. It's like taking your work home with you, so you can feel grounded in your own insane writerly realities wherever you are.

Sadie Jones

#35. I try to remember that the job - as well as the plight, and the unexpected joy - of the artist is to embrace uncertainty, to be sharpened and honed by it.

Dani Shapiro

#36. Writing is a puzzle you'll spend your lifetime unlocking. You will never know it all; you will never know enough. You can always be better, and figuring out how to be better is part of the thrill and joy of the job.

Holly Lisle

#37. Child, to say the very thing you really mean, the whole of it, nothing more or less or other than what you really mean; that's the whole art and joy of words.

C.S. Lewis

#38. My first thought, as a child, was that the artist brings something into the world that didn't exist before, and that he does it without destroying something else. A kind of refutation of the conservation of matter. That still seems to me its central magic, its core of joy.

John Updike

#39. Writers when they're writing live in a spooky, clamorous silence, a state somewhat like the advanced stages of prayer but without prayer's calming benefits.

Joy Williams

#40. Poetry, at least the kind I write, is written out of immediate need; it is written out of pain, joy, and experience too great to be borne until it is ordered into words. And then it is written to be shared.

Madeleine L'Engle

#41. I believe enlightenment or revelation comes in daily life. I look for joy, the peace of action. You need action. I'd have stopped writing years ago if it were for the money.

Paulo Coelho

#42. Writing is a bittersweet addiction. The more it drains you; the more replenished you feel, and you crave it even more.

Anthea Syrokou

#43. There is the happiness which comes from creative effort. The joy of dreaming, creating, building, whether in painting a picture, writing an epic, singing a song, composing a symphony, devising new invention, creating a vast industry.

Henry Miller

#44. Travel is a joy, full of surprises and astonishing new experiences. Perhaps some of the most enjoyable times are those where one comes close to disaster; the risks add spice.

Jane Wilson-Howarth

#45. The writing is a joy, so seamless you nearly miss the sheer artistry of the style and the terrific, wry humour.

Ken Bruen

#46. Birds are everywhere in our literature, a part, it seems, of our collective poetic imagination. If writing a beautiful line of poetry fills a poet's heart with joy, imagine how that same poet's soul must take flight at the sight of swallows soaring through the evening sky!

Lynn Thomson

#47. Despite my solitary life, I have found infinite joy in books and writing, and am by far too much interested in the affairs of the world to quit the scene before Nature shall claim me.

H.P. Lovecraft

#48. I feel myself part of something. Not only being part of a community but part of an actual moment and a movement of Irish writing and art. That sense of being part of the whole thing is the deepest joy.

Seamus Heaney

#49. I write songs very quickly, so the 20 minutes of joy I get out of writing a song doesn't compare to the two months of joy I get engaging with the people who like my music.

Halsey

#50. The main thing is to write
for the joy of it. Cultivate a work-lust
that imagines its haven like your hands at night
dreaming the sun in the sunspot of a breast.
You are fasted now, light-headed, dangerous.
Take off from here.

Seamus Heaney

#51. I dread the promotion part of my job. It's agony, especially compared to the private, at-home joy of writing. But being a grown-up means doing every part of the larger task.

Chuck Palahniuk

#52. I write because there is nothing as joyful as writing, even when the writing is twisted and full of hate, the self-hate that makes writing not only possible but necessary. I hate myself, I hate the people around me, but what I crave is the fulfillment of some ideal.

Gary Shteyngart

#53. I'm writing exactly the kinds of books I like to write. And they're the kinds of books I like to read. They're popular commercial fiction. That's what they are.

Joy Fielding

#54. One of the accidental joys of my writing life has been that I've had some lovely, surprisingly good fortune with readers, and I've brought readers to my dad's work. I can't tell you the joy that gives me. Because my father's work was masterful.

Andre Dubus III

#55. The process of writing a book is so removed in my mind from the process of publishing it that I often forget for great stretches that I eventually hope to do the latter.

Karen Joy Fowler

#56. Write, write, write! Get your you-know-what in the chair and write more books: write the books of your heart and don't let stress steal your joy.

Sarra Cannon

#57. If you are a real writer, then just surrender to the writer's life, all of it, even the bad stuff. When you do that, the beauty appears: the peace, the meaning, the joy, the fulfillment, the sense that you are doing what you were born to do and what could be better, in the end, than that?

Lauren B. Davis

#58. The artist cannot hold back; it is impossible, because writing, or any other discipline of art, involves participation in suffering, in the ills and the occasional stabbing joys that come from being part of the human drama.

Madeleine L'Engle

#59. I remember the absolute joy I used to get out of writing. The purity of imagining something and then putting it down on paper - it was such a pleasure. I read whatever I could get my hands on, from 'Great Expectations' to 'The Thorn Birds.'

Liane Moriarty

#60. All of the writing on '30 Rock' is a joy to go into. It's pretty hot stuff.

Elaine Stritch

#61. In Sarasota, Florida, Stephen King reminded me of the joy of just writing every day.

Neil Gaiman

#62. Think of Shakespeare and Melville and you think of thunder, lightning, wind. They all knew the joy of creating in large or small forms, on unlimited or restricted canvases. These are the children of the gods.

Ray Bradbury

#63. Getting that first draft out is a horribly hard grind, but that (perversely) is where the joy of it lies.

Jonathan Stroud

#64. I grew up writing thank-you notes. Real, honest-to-goodness, pen-and-ink, stamped and posted letters. More than simple habit, it's about what the commitment to expressing your thoughts and feelings in writing says about the character of the writer. About the joy such notes bring to the reader.

Taylor Mali

#65. 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

#66. Writing is extremely personal, and that's the joy of it for me.

Steve Martin

#67. I've always associated the moment of writing with a moment of lift, of joy, of unexpected reward.

Seamus Heaney

#68. Your words are so powerful that they can break
hearts or fill them with joy. Your words have
the ability to comfort a wounded soul or shatter
someone's confidence. Your words can act as your
messengers of hope or a salve for a broken human
being.

Rachel C. Weingarten

#69. At these times, the things that troubled her seemed far away and unimportant: all that mattered was the hum of the bees and the chirp of birdsong, the way the sun gleamed on the edge of a blue wildflower, the distant bleat and clink of grazing goats.

Alison Croggon

#70. I would assume that there is a greater amount of joy for you in being able to write and help produce your own stuff and make a decent living, but not get rich versus always doing the other stuff that you don't write, and make more money.

Julie Delpy

#71. Once you are truly seduced by profession of writing, you clock in one time ... and never clock out. You dwell in a creative space with the pure joy of embracing the very moment that mystifies others because no vacation is ever taken or desired. Perfecting your craft is your calm.

Carl Henegan

#72. The real joy of writing lies in the opportunity of being able to sacrifice a whole chapter for a single sentence, a complete sentence for a single word...

Jean Baudrillard

#73. The beauty of existence is my joy.

Lailah Gifty Akita

#74. Good poetry reveals the beauty of joy and tragedy.

Debasish Mridha

#75. Writers should find out where joy resides and give it a voice. Every bright word or picture is a piece of pleasure set afloat. The reader catches it, and he goes on his way rejoicing. It's the business of art to send him that way as often as possible.

Nancy Horan

#76. Sometimes, I marvel at the wonder
of how graceful words seem to appear
pen to paper; in others' hands
And I think to myself-
oh, how obsolete my existence is,
to be unable to do the same.

Joy Chua

#77. I love writing. I've always been drawn to that and felt a particular joy in it - like the phrase in Chariots of Fire: "God made me fast and when I run I feel his pleasure." God gave me a love of writing and (I knew) to do it I would feel God's pleasure.

Randall Wallace

#78. I ended up on 'Heroes' because I auditioned for the part like everybody else, but the writers were writing the role of Daphne, which was originally called Joy.

Brea Grant

#79. The more words I have, the more distinct, precise my perceptions become
and such lucidity is a form of joy.

Eva Hoffman

#80. But there is no end to the praise of books, to the value of the library. Who shall estimate their influence on our population where all the millions read and write ? It is the joy of nations that man can communicate all his thoughts, discoveries and virtues to records that may last for centuries.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

#81. Occasionally I wonder why I can be so happy. The answer is that every day of my life I've worked only for myself and for the joy that comes from writing and creating. The image in my mirror is not optimistic, but the result of optimal behavior.

Ray Bradbury

#82. The writer trusts nothing she writes-it should be too reckless and alive for that, it should be beautiful and menacing and slightly out of control ... Good writing ... explodes in the reader's face. Whenever the writer writes, it's always three or four or five o'clock in the morning in her head.

Joy Williams

#83. My beloved husband goes through radiation, and a book of sonnets is my passionate response. And then after he dies, I write another book of poems as a farewell. The two keywords here are passion and joy. I simply have a passion for writing, and I do it with joy.

Jane Yolen

#84. Part of the joy of music is listening to lots of different kinds of music and learning from it. Specifically for me, I like writing songs that move me, and what moves me are beautiful songs on the piano or the guitar and really, really heavy music.

Ryan Adams

#85. The writer who refuses to explore the darker regions of the heart will never be able to write convincingly about the wonder, the magic and the joy of love for just as goodness cannot be trusted unless it has breathed the same air as evil.

Nick Cave

#86. Learn from your rejections and polish your craft. Write for the sheer joy of being creative.

Jonathan Weeks