Quotes About Why We Write

#1. I do not know what you are supposed to do with memories likes these. It feels wrong to want to forget. Perhaps this is why we write these things down, so we can move on.

Lloyd Jones

#2. The imagination can be dangerous. It can change the world. And that is why we write.

Meg Rosoff

#3. When you look into the eyes of your people out there that came to see you, that's when it's like, 'Yep, this is what it's all about.' This is why we don't sleep, and this is why we write songs and try to be the best. This moment right here onstage.

Luke Bryan

#4. When we see the human race, we must see before all else environment and food. Historians write about social change without taking these factors into account. This is why it is difficult for them to see the reasons decline and prosperity in society.

Michio Kushi

#5. Writing is a mixed blessing. We, who are addicted, berate ourselves and feel guilty when we don't write and at the same time put it off and hunt for diversions. Why? Because the this that makes us the happiest is also tedious, hard and frustrating. Writing makes us crazy; not writing even crazier.

Marcia Preston

#6. Each time we had a visiting writer, I asked what she thought of women and humor. By the end of the year, I had perfected my question and asked Adrienne Rich why there was so little written about women and humor. She looked at me right in the eye and said, 'You write it.' I took that as an order.

Kate Clinton

#7. Despite all the cynical things writers have said about writing for money, the truth is we write for love. That is why it is so easy to exploit us.

Erica Jong

#8. Why do we read biography? Why do we choose to write it? Because we are human beings, programmed to be curious about other human beings, and to experience something of their lives. This has always been so - look at the Bible, crammed with biographies, very popular reading.

Claire Tomalin

#9. Part of the reason why I want to write these books is to make everybody realize that we're all fantastic.

Sara Alexi in interview with Dario Ciriello

Sara Alexi

#10. In sixth grade, we all had to write this opinion paper. Most wrote about things like why we should be able to chew gum in class - I wrote about why women should receive equal pay.

Gillian Jacobs

#11. I have to do this, as long as it is at all possible; for if those who are obliged to look after commas had always made sure they were in the right place, then Shanghai would not be burning.

Karl Kraus

#12. Ahh! Lady Pillows. So much fluffier than mine." He took a giant whiff. "Why does everything girlie smell so delightful?" "Because we acknowledge the importance of basic hygiene. And periodically clean our bathrooms." "Brilliant. I should write that down. After all, it takes a village.

Kathy Reichs

#13. Story always tells us more than the mere words, and that is why we love to write it, and to read it.

Madeleine L'Engle

#14. Writers, naturally, dream of becoming authors. Authors dream of writing a bestseller. Bestselling authors want to write more bestsellers. And everyone hopes for big prizes. Why? Because we believe in magic. Publisher's Weekly magazine, Dec. 12, 2011

Amy Hill Hearth

#15. Why do we have a brain in the first place? Not to write books, articles, or plays; not to do science or play music. Brains develop because they are an expedient way of managing life in a body.

Antonio Damasio

#16. People write fiction in their minds all the time - every time we read a 'human interest' news story, or a true crime tale, we find ourselves fascinated because we're trying to understand why people behave the way they do, why they make the choices they do, how we become who we become.

Dan Chaon

#17. If writing is language and language is desire and longing and suffering ... then why when we write, when we make shapes on paper, why then does it so often look like the traditional, straight models, why does our longing look for example like John Updike's longing?

Carole Maso

#18. And why? Is our genius only in our wombs? Can we not write books and create learned scholarship and perform music and provide philosophical models for the betterment of mankind?

E.L. Doctorow

#19. Why, why in the blue-green world write this sort of thing? Funny written culture, I guess; we pass things on.

Annie Dillard

#20. I don't know why, but I always feel a kind of necessity to write things that are beyond acceptance, that are too offensive or something. For people to read them and say, Ha-ha-ha, very funny. No, we can't print that.

Terry Southern

#21. Why write if this too easy activity of pushing a pen across paper is not given a certain bullfighting risk and we do not approach dangerous, agile and two-horned topics?

Jose Ortega Y Gasset

#22. 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

#23. History is what we write, not what we remember. Why should we tarnish the memory of our planet by enshrining our less then noble deeds?

Alastair Reynolds

#24. I love writing poetry because it's pretty. I love writing pretty.

Richelle E. Goodrich

#25. We are a species that needs and wants to understand who we are. Sheep lice do not seem to share this longing, which is one reason why they write so little.

Anne Lamott

#26. Favoring 'resolution' the way we do, it is hard for us men to write great love stories. Why?, because we want to tell too much. We aren't satisfied unless at the end of the story the characters are lying there, panting.

Roman Payne

#27. My question is "when did other people give up the idea of being a poet?" You know, when we are kids we make up things, we write, and for me the puzzle is not that some people are still writing, the real question is why did the other people stop?

William Stafford

#28. Write every day. Don't ever stop. If you are unpublished, enjoy the act of writing - and if you are published, keep enjoying the act of writing. Don't become self-satisfied, don't stop moving ahead, growing, making it new. The stakes are high. Why else would we write?

Rick Bass

#29. Why haven't we fixed sick yet? You scientists there
put down those starfish and HELP us. I hereby demand that all the people who are good at math make the world free of illness. The rest of us will write you epic poems and staple them together into a booklet.

Daniel Handler

#30. Why can't Google, which likes to see itself as a 'Don't Be Evil' benevolent force in society, just write us a big check for using our stories, so we can keep checks and balances alive and continue to provide the search engine with our stories?

Maureen Dowd

#31. Why do we write fiction? Professor Piper asked.
Cath looked down at her notebook.
To disappear.

Rainbow Rowell

#32. Why dwell on the past, when we have yet to write the future

P.A. Henley

#33. All we really have when we pretend to write about the future is the moment in which we are writing. That's why every imagined future obsoletes like an ice cream melting on the way back from the corner store.

William Gibson

#34. You are the best of us. We are the best of you. What becomes of us will, inevitably, become of you. That is why you should care. That is why I write.
I end this chapter, then, with broken silence, broken vows, broken trust. Our secrets are yours now; I pray you use them well.

Donna Boyd

#35. Why hasn't someone lassoed a few teenagers and had them sit down and write out all the supposed answers they have so we can solve the world's problems already?

Richelle E. Goodrich

#36. 'American Playhouse' is very supportive of writers. That's really why writers like to write for 'American Playhouse' for very little money. They care about making your play, your script, not some network production. We're treated like playwrights, not like fodder for some machine.

Terrence McNally

#37. When I write a novel, I want it to be completely different from a screenplay. I'm very conscious of the difference, and I want novels to work purely as novels. Otherwise I don't see how they'll survive - why don't we just all go to the movies or watch television.

Kazuo Ishiguro

#38. It is human nature to look away from illness. We don't enjoy a reminder of our own fragile mortality. That's why writing on the Internet has become a life-saver for me. My ability to think and write have not been affected. And on the Web, my real voice finds expression.

Roger Ebert

#39. Oracle, why did you write The Grasshopper Lies Heavy? What are we supposed to learn?

Philip K. Dick

#40. A question I've thought about a great deal is why it is so much easier to write about the things we dislike/hate/acknowledge to be flawed than the things we love.

Gabrielle Zevin

#41. But then why do we write if not to tackle the fears that others look to us to conquer?

J.F. Penn

#42. We cannot all write like Lincoln or Shakespeare, but even the least gifted of us has the incredible instrument, our voice, to communicate the range of human emotions. Why would we deprive ourselves of that?

Sherry Turkle

#43. I got an idea: people like news why don't we write the news down on a piece of paper, and we'll gas them up and drive them to everyone's house. I mean, if you were going to say that now, it doesn't sound like a great idea, because there are other ways you can distribute the news.

Biz Stone

#44. Why my interest in writers? Well, I'm one, and many of my friends are writers. I know what it's like to write. I'm interested in the creative process. I'm fascinated by the disparity between who we are on the outside, and what we have bubbling away inside us.

Eric Brown

#45. Bring on the controversy. I write real life. It's harsh and sometimes gritty, but it's real. Why should we tip toe around that?

Shandy L. Kurth

#46. We want to be famous as a writer, as a poet, as a painter, as a politician, as a singer, or what you will. Why? Because we really don't love what we are doing. If you loved to sing, or to paint, or to write poems, if you really loved it you would not be concerned with whether you are famous or not.

Jiddu Krishnamurti

#47. I have finally figured out the meaning of life: there's no such thing. And that's a beautiful thing, because that means that WE get to choose it ourselves. Life has no meaning besides the meaning you give it. You are indeed the author of your destiny. So why not write a book worth reading?

Dean Bokhari

#48. It's a juicy thing to say we're building a phone, which is why people want to write about it. But it's so clearly the wrong strategy for us.

Mark Zuckerberg

#49. I'm more interested in interpersonal relationships - between lovers families, siblings. That's why I write about how we treat each other.

Terry McMillan

#50. WRITE EVERYTHING YOU know about dying. Just go. Don't think, "What does she mean by that?" Dive in. We die in all kinds of ways. Who died? When did they die? how? why?

Natalie Goldberg

#51. I write because it is while I'm writing that I feel most connected to why we're here. I write because silence is a heavy weight to carry. I write to remember. I write to heal. I write to let the air in. I write as a practice of listening.

Andrea Gibson

#52. Why do they put pictures of criminals up in the Post Office? What are we supposed to do, write to them? Why don't they just put their pictures on the postage stamps so the postmen can look for them while they deliver the mail?

Steven Wright

#53. Why did I decide to write cyber thrillers? Because we've gone from the Cold War to the Code War.

Thomas Waite

#54. Why else do we write and write except to move our readers?

Jerome Charyn

#55. This is the reason I write, to remind people of honor and courage; to tell them that their cause isn't lost, that their destiny is victory.

Charles M. Blow

#56. The deepest mystery of Twitter is why celebrities and elected officials take part. After all, we all know they can't write their own lines.

David Harsanyi

#57. I write because, as wonderful as life is - and it is truly wonderful - it isn't enough. It does not, for example, contain dragons. I find this unsatisfactory. So I read. And I write.

Laini Taylor

#58. I don't really want to write fiction at all. I don't see why fiction is necessary when we have real life already confusing enough.

Aaron Belz

#59. I think most people write from what they see in their own world, which is maybe why we so often see an African-American woman as the best friend, or the one you bring in when you need some sass. It's like we're put in a box.

Tika Sumpter

#60. Why do writers write? Why do actors act? Why do painters paint? It doesn't pay much, unless you're very successful. It's who we are.

Lori Lesko

#61. We write for those who get the musical jokes. But for those who don't, there is always something else going on. That's why we have such a widespread audience.

Richard Hyung-ki Joo

#62. Sometimes I'll write a tweet that I'll just be like, 'Why do I have to say this to all of these people?' It's like writing a Facebook status: it's the same. I view tweeting as like writing a Facebook status. Remember when we used to write statuses?

Ansel Elgort

#63. Why do I write? Out of fear. Out of fear that the memory of the people I write about might go lost. Out of fear that the memory of myself might get lost. Or even just to be shielded by a story, to slip inside a story and stop being recognizable, controllable, subject to blackmail.

Fabrizio De Andre

#64. Why do I write? I write because I have to, because it is all I know, because it is my truth, because I am compelled, because I am driven to make the world acknowledge that women like me exist, and we possess a dangerous wisdom.

Patrick Califia-Rice

#65. Why do we write?
"To make suffering endurable
To make evil intelligible
To make justice desirable
and . . . to make love possible

Roger Rosenblatt