Top 100 Why I Write Quotes
#1. I always write with my .357 magnum handy. Why? Well, you never know when God may try to interfere.
Edward Abbey
#2. The military is a very cool world to write about. I went down to Ft. Benning, Ga., for military training, and I learned a lot about soldiers and officers and why they joined up and what their life has been like.
David Baldacci
#3. You know what I say to people when I hear they're writing anti-war books? I say 'Why don't you write an anti-glacier book instead?
Kurt Vonnegut
#4. 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
#5. Semi-facetiously, when people ask me why I write these kinds of stories, I simply say that I was warped as a child. And, there is some truth to that.
Stephen King
#6. If you ever want to know why I'm not on a record label, look at 'The X Factor!' Honestly, of all the people that strive to break barriers in music and do good things and write great lyrics, not one of them would ever pass the first round on any of these competitions.
John Lydon
#7. But why wasn't I born, alas, in an age of Adjectives; why can one no longer write of silver-shedding Tears and moon-tailed Peacocks, of eloquent Death, of the Negro and star-enameled Night?
Logan Pearsall Smith
#8. 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
#9. 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
#10. 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
#11. If I can write a book that will help the world make a little more sense to a teen, then that's why I was put on the planet.
Laurie Halse Anderson
#12. 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
#13. Why do you have to be out of town to write a postcard? I want a to write a postcard to my neighbor: "I still live near you!" The guy sees me go into my apartment, flips the card over, it's just a picture of me holding a rifle.
Jim Gaffigan
#14. Now, Sophia, would you care to tell me why you're here by the pond instead of reporting to your next class?'
'I'm experiencing some teenage angst, Mrs. Casnoff,' I answered. 'I need to, like, write in my journal or something.
Rachel Hawkins
#15. 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
#16. Life baffles me most days. Maybe that's why I write. To try and make sense of it all.
Christy Hall
#17. So, I was always frustrated having to write and having to cut things. Why should you have to cut anything?
Ted Nelson
#18. 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
#19. There seems to be a great propensity in this business to write tear-jerkers, 'You-left-me' songs. I thought, 'Why don't I count my blessings by looking at what I have?' I'm pretty much an optimistic guy.
Jerry Jeff Walker
#20. You may well ask me why ... I took the time to write [books]. I can only reply that I do not know. There was no why about it. I had to: that was all.
George Bernard Shaw
#21. Why do I write? I write to entertain my friends and to exasperate our enemies. To unfold the folded lie, to record to truth of our time, and, of course, to promote esthetic bliss.
Edward Abbey
#22. Every time I make a mistake with a company, I write it out and try to figure out why it happened.
Garrett Camp
#23. My characters are quite as real to me as so-called real people; which is one reason why I'm not subject to what is known as loneliness. I have plenty of company.
William S. Burroughs
#24. Publishing a short story can sometimes feel like shouting into the dark ... your words come out, and then nothing ... but I don't think that's why I tend to write novels rather than stories.
Alice McDermott
#25. If something happened where I couldn't write music anymore, it would kill me. It's not just a job. It's not just a hobby. It's why I get up in the morning.
Hans Zimmer
#26. I don't write particularly to effect social change. I believe writing can do that, but that's not why I write.
August Wilson
#27. I never try to convey a message, I just want to tell a story. Why that story in particular? I have no idea, but I have learned to surrender to the muse. I become obsessed with a theme or with certain stories; they haunt me for years, and finally, I write them.
Isabel Allende
#28. Our poets do not write about it; our artists do not try to portray this remarkable thing. I don't know why. Is nobody inspired by our present picture of the universe? The value of science remains unsung by singers ... This is not yet a scientific age ...
Richard P. Feynman
#29. God knows why - no pun intended - but every time I write a song, I feel a need to touch on religion.
Martin Gore
#30. Unfortunately in the matter of Speech Defects, when so much depends on the temperament and individuality, a case can always be produced that can prove you are wrong. That is why I won't write a book [Lionel Logue concluded]
Mark Logue
#31. Bernard Herrmann used to write all his scores by himself. So did Bach, Beethoven and Stravinsky. I don't understand why this happens in the movie industry.
Ennio Morricone
#32. I only write when I'm angry or sad, so because that's when I just have to write ... If I'm having a good time and I'm happy and things are going really well, why would I want to stop what I'm doing to go and write at the piano?
Fiona Apple
#33. You talk books away," he said; "why don't you write one?" "I am too fond of reading books to care to write them, Mr. Erskine. I should like to write a novel certainly, a novel that would be as lovely as a Persian carpet and as unreal.
Oscar Wilde
#34. Ah men, why do you want all this attention? I can write poems for myself, make love to a doorknob if absolutely necessary. What do you have to offer me I can't find otherwise except humiliation? Which I no longer need.
Margaret Atwood
#35. Ach, Tchekov! Why are you dead? Why can't I talk to you in a big darkish room at late evening - where the light is green from the waving trees outside? I'd like to write a series of Heavens: that would be one.
Katherine Mansfield
#36. Whenever I write a dramatic poem I can't understand why the characters should ever want to be anything but poets themselves.
Saul Bellow
#37. I used to be opposed to collaboration, and that's probably why the music in the past wasn't as good. Writing with other people, especially the great writers that I've had the privilege to write with, it activates something in your mind that you wouldn't use alone.
Charlie Puth
#38. I am often asked why I started to write poetry. The answer is that my motivation sprang from a visceral need to creatively articulate the experiences of the black youth of my generation, coming of age in a racist society.
Linton Kwesi Johnson
#39. Because I know if I sit down and start to write out how it feels ... . it all becomes too real ... the pain becomes too much. But that's the weird part because I feel so empty, like there no longer is a heart living where there used to be one, so why am I feeling pain?
Chriselle Ravadilla
#40. 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
#41. What a grim feeling it is to come across a written line so exceptionally inspiring that your first reaction is, 'Criminy, why didn't I ever think to write that!'
Richelle E. Goodrich
#42. The better you know something, the less you remember about how hard it was to learn. The curse of knowledge is the single best explanation I know of why good people write bad prose.
Steven Pinker
#43. A simple word or phrase on a blank sheet of paper gathers momentum as I wonder at what it could mean, where it could take place, why, and what if? . . . And then, I write.
Tyrean Martinson
#44. Tell me this
if you knew you would be poor as a church mouse all your life
if you knew you'd never have a line published
would you still go on writing
would you?'
'Of course I would,' said Emily disdainfully. 'Why, I have to write
I can't help it at times
I've just got to.
L.M. Montgomery
#45. I like to joke that you usually write more books before death than after death, so that's why I'm doing it. But really, I remain engaged with ideas. There are so many things happening that turn me on and I just want to examine them.
T.C. Boyle
#46. I have no desire to write historical anything or futuristic anything - I want to find a way to get at the essence of what it's like to be alive now. The reason why great novels from centuries ago are still great is because that's what they were doing; it's like a message from another culture.
Jonathan Dee
#47. I don't want to think that anything is off limits for me to write about, but I also don't want to intrude on anybody's life, which is why there's very little specificity or names in the songs I write.
J. D. Souther
#48. I didn't want to write sketch comedy after 'Mr. Show.' I felt like, after 'Mr. Show', why would you want to go work at any of the other places that existed then?
Brian Posehn
#49. O why do I ever let anyone read what I write! Every time I have to go through a breakfast with a letter of criticism I swear I will write for my own praise or blame in future. It is a misery.
Virginia Woolf
#50. But I don't really write to honor the past. I write to investigate, to try to figure out what happened and why it happened, knowing I'll never really know. I think all the writers that I admire have this same desire, the desire to bring order out of chaos.
Horton Foote
#51. My next book - each one while I'm working on it - dances in my mind and thrills me at every turn. If it didn't, why would I write it?
Yann Martel
#52. In graduate school, I decide to write my doctoral thesis on how Italian architecture influenced English playwrights of the seventeenth century. I wonder why certain playwrights decided to set their tragedies, written in English, in Italian palaces.
Jhumpa Lahiri
#53. I'm half-black, half-white, so I basically put it like this: I can fit in anywhere. That's why I write so many stories from so many different perspectives, because I've seen so many.
J. Cole
#54. 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
#55. Maybe that's why I write romance. I'm a dreamer at heart. If I can't have it in real life, I'll live it on paper instead.
Nicola Haken
#56. People will sometimes say, "Why don't you write more politics?" And I have to explain to them that writing the lives of women IS politics.
Grace Paley
#57. When asked why I write, I say it is why I breathe. How I make my heart beat with life. It must be done so I can exist." The Man With the Green Suitcase
Dee Doanes
#58. I write everything. I have that control issue with my music. That's why I'm not in a band.
Daniel Powter
#59. 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
#60. I make it clear why I write as I do and why other poets write as they do. After hundreds of experiments I decided to go my own way in style and see what would happen.
Carl Sandburg
#61. I'm not a very good communicator, so maybe that's why I write about talking.
Nina Nastasia
#62. I don't understand why, in my work, writing is always so dangerous. It's very destructive. People who write books are destroyers.
A.S. Byatt
#63. Honestly...this is why I write.
I write to get the happy ending I sometimes feel is eluding me.
I write for my sanity.
Debora Dennis
#64. I've been Catholic all my life, and there's one thing I've never understood. Why didn't the Corinthians write back?
Tommy Lasorda
#65. But at the same time, I have trouble keeping things out of books, which is why I don't write short stories because they turn into novels.
Jonathan Coe
#66. Well, in fact everybody - everybody - in the entire nation has enough stuff in their life to write about that's interesting that they could write their autobiography. And in the end that's why I find people interesting.
Jane Smiley
#67. I do not write often now - not for want of something to say, but from a loathing of all I see and hear. Why dwell upon it?
Mary Boykin Chesnut
#68. I try to be outraged by things that other people are just very accepting of, as though they're normal and can't be changed. A lot of what I write about is, 'Hey, you know, this stuff is really awful, and it doesn't need to be, and that's why it's so offensive.' Things should be better.
Matt Taibbi
#69. When I came home, I was asked to put my pictures in a photo exhibit at the Cinematography College ... my pictures won first prize. I began to ask myself what I was doing, and why. A few months after the exhibit, I dropped out of college, left my wife and began to write this book.
Vladislav Tamarov
#70. The more I write, the less I understand why.
Marty Rubin
#71. I think that's why I write - the not knowing and the blasted good feeling I get out of it all.
Chila Woychik
#72. 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
#73. At least I'm at peace with myself. I have done my best to write a book about what really happened there and why it happened and it's done, it's published. I won't write another book on Vietnam.
Neil Sheehan
#74. A lot of times students will come up to me and say, "Well, I can't write because I don't know what I think about such-and-such." And I say, "That's why you have to write." You don't wait until you know, because then who cares - it's static.
Alison Hawthorne Deming
#75. I really wanted to be a cartoonist, and I was in 4th or 5th grade and I would bring my drawings in, and I'd look around, and everyone could draw better than me. Everyone. My drawings were just awful. So that's why I had to write.
R.L. Stine
#76. Why should I be polished and improved like goods for sale? I might not even want to marry! And besides, I have many skills. I can read and write and play the flute and harp. Why should I change to please some man? If he doesn't like me the way I am, then he can get some other girl for his wife.
Juliet Marillier
#77. Why do you want to become an author? I will accept only one answer. If it is because you feel you can write better than you can do anything else then go ahead and do it without frills and flourishes. Stick to your present job and write in your spare time: but do it as if it is a whole time job.
Ngaio Marsh
#78. I couldn't make myself write serious; I was surrounded by serious: in monographs, in articles, in my own dissertation prospectus, in the very earnest e-mails of students telling me just why that paper couldn't be in on time, cross their hearts and hope to get an A-minus.
Lauren Willig
#79. When someone says that I'm angry it's actually a compliment. I have not always been direct with my anger in my relationships, which is part of why I'd write about it in my songs because I had such fear around expressing anger as a woman.
Alanis Morissette
#80. I think I'll be Scottish in every movie I write. They always try to talk me out of it, but Woody Allen is always a nebbish New Yorker. Why shouldn't I be a goofy Glaswegian?
Craig Ferguson
#81. People ask me, 'Why are you still writing books?' Like I'm still only writing to make money and as soon as I have enough I'll quit and go fishing? I like to write books. It's the most satisfying thing I do.
Elmore Leonard
#82. I do feel guilty. I do. Especially about my family, my children. I write about them, and I know that this will haunt them as well through their lives. Why did I do that to them?
Karl Ove Knausgaard
#83. Take it from me: I really love making things up, which is why I write fiction for a living.
Kristin Gore
#84. It was an interesting thing to do. Why did I write any of my books, after all? For the sake of the pleasure, for the sake of the difficulty. I have no social purpose, no moral message; I've no general ideas to exploit, I just like composing riddles with elegant solutions.
Vladimir Nabokov
#85. You ask me why I write. You might as well ask me why I breathe. I need oxygen to feed my body and ink to feed my soul.
Bryce Main
#86. I never even held a guitar until I was 23 and living in California, but then loved it. I'm really not an accomplished instrumentalist. Maybe that has something to do with why I write and sing.
J. D. Souther
#87. I feel sometimes that I'm in a constant state of being lost in translation, and I guess that why I write songs.
Laura Marling
#88. When it was time to write, and he took his pen in his hand, he never thought of consequences; he thought of style. I wonder why I ever bothered with sex, he thought; there's nothing in this breathing world so gratifying as an artfully placed semicolon.
Hilary Mantel
#89. If you don't have to write songs, why write them? I've got enough where I don't really feel the urge to write anything additional.
Bob Dylan
#91. I am acutely aware that all I have been able to achieve has been in large part due to circumstances outside my control. This is why I teach, and this is why I write. I want to be one of those opportunities for others. Perhaps this is the true measure of success.
Chris Matakas
#92. I thought why not write a kind of mystery, murder, thriller book, but use romance language where the language plays completely against the very dark subject matter, that very strange murderous plot, but use that Harlequin Romance language.
Chuck Palahniuk
#93. The best of all kinds of movies are character-driven, and I definitely don't want to lose sight of why Derek and I started to write movies together in the first place.
Colin Trevorrow
#94. Why did he write to her, "I can't live without you?" And why did she write to him "I can't live without you?" For he went west and she went east and they both lived.
Carl Sandburg
#95. 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
#96. I know my fans look up to me and that's why I make my songs so personal; it's all about things I've experienced and things I like or hate. I write for myself and hope that my fans like what I have to say.
Avril Lavigne
#97. I make up stories in my head all the time, but I've never written them down. But I write a lot of story songs. Any song I'm singing, I sort of see it like a movie in my head. That's why a lot of times I close my eyes when I'm singing.
Ashley Monroe
#98. I'm more interested in interpersonal relationships - between lovers families, siblings. That's why I write about how we treat each other.
Terry McMillan
#99. Why do I write? The truth, the unvarnished truth, is that I haven't a clue.
Gloria Naylor
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