Top 100 Why Write Quotes
#2. Why write? Life is a cage of empty words.
Miriam Elia
#3. 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
#4. A man writes because he is tormented, because he doubts. He needs to constantly prove to himself and the others that he's worth something. And if I know for sure that I'm a genius? Why write then? What the hell for?
Andrei Tarkovsky
#5. Why write a song when no one can play the notes or understand the lyrics?
Christopher Moore
#6. What a long way it is from one life to another: yet why write if not for that distance; if things can be let go, every before replaced by an after.
Yiyun Li
#7. There is sometimes a feeling in crime fiction that good writing gets in the way of story. I have never felt that way. All you have is language. Why write beneath yourself? It's an act of respect for the reader as much as yourself.
John Connolly
#8. That memory is so crushing
why write me letters
I already know.
Joshua Beckman
#10. The fan mail I get from kids are asking me questions which they do not ask their mothers and fathers. Because if they had, why write to me, a perfect stranger?
Maurice Sendak
#11. The central question driving literary aesthetics in the age of the iPad is no longer 'How should novels be?' but 'Why write novels at all?'
Garth Risk Hallberg
#12. Why write about the past? Well, there's more of it.
John Cleese
#13. Why write poetry? For the weird unemployment. / For the painless headaches, that must be tapped to strike / down along your writing arm at the accumulated moment. / For the adjustments after, aligning facets in a verb / before the trance leaves you. For working always beyond / your own intelligence.
Les Murray
#14. 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
#15. Why write a book on uncovering past lives? Because the benefits for personal empowerment, healing, and enlightenment are tremendous.
Ted Andrews
#16. Why be in music, why write songs, if you can't use them to explore life or an idealized vision of life? I believe a lot of our lives are spent asleep, and what I've been trying to do is hold on to those moments when a little spark cuts through the fog and nudges you.
Rufus Wainwright
#17. Why write for the orchestra? For one thing it's a very challenging problem.
Elliott Carter
#19. Oh boo hoo, everyone's life was hard, and if you'd survived the hardship, why write about it? Survival itself was enough.
Meg Wolitzer
#20. I always write with my .357 magnum handy. Why? Well, you never know when God may try to interfere.
Edward Abbey
#21. 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
#22. 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
#23. Everyone thinks writers must know more about the inside of the human head, but that's wrong. They know less, that's why they write. Trying to find out what everyone else takes for granted.
Margaret Atwood
#24. 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
#25. 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
#26. What you're feeling now, and the person you may reach with your words five years from now-that's why you write poetry.
Colleen Hoover
#27. 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
#28. 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
#29. If someone who is agitated comes to visit you, wanting to discuss their agitation and weigh the pros and cons of what action he should take, my suggestion is to give him the mantram album and say, "why don't you just write Rama, Rama, Rama a thousand times?
Eknath Easwaran
#30. Why does one write these books after all? The drudgery, the misery, the grind, are forgotten everytime; and one launches another, and it seems sheer joy and buoyancy.
Virginia Woolf
#31. 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
#32. 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
#33. 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
#34. Just do it. Get it down on the page. Work hard. And then let go. Ask yourself why you want to write. You have to be clear about that.
Yann Martel
#35. 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
#36. 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
#37. 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
#38. 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
#39. 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
#40. There's nothing funnier than getting a death threat via MySpace. Why don't you just write it in a children's birthday card.
Doug Stanhope
#41. 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
#42. 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
#43. 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
#44. 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
#45. 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
#46. But then why shouldn't he write the dead? He lived with them as much as with the living - perhaps more; and besides, his letters to the living were increasingly mental, and anyway, to the Unconscious, what was death? Dreams did not recognize it.
Saul Bellow
#47. I guess I'm attracted and repelled by isolation. It scares me. And it's why I tend to write about older characters, too, because for them the stakes are somewhat higher.
Conor McPherson
#48. I sometimes wonder why I do so much research - I look at other successful writers, and I think it must just be so relaxing to write about flying horses or something, but I have to make it plausible.
Michelle Paver
#49. Do I like to write? Why? About what? Will I give up and say, "Living and feeding a man's insatiable guts and begetting children occupies my whole life. Don't have time to write"?
Sylvia Plath
#50. People ask me: "Why do you write about food, and eating, and drinking? Why don't you write about the struggle for power and security, and about love, the way the others do?" ... The easiest answer is to say that, like most other humans, I am hungry.
M.F.K. Fisher
#51. 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
#52. I tended not to be concerned about whether a song was going to be a hit when I wrote it. Because it became evident that none of us knew what was a hit and what wasn't. So I thought if I just write what I like, why shouldn't people like what I like?
Hal David
#53. I write so others might contemplate things that are out of the ordinary. I write to make people feel - to cause laughter and tears and anger at injustice. I write so the world will imagine and wonder at crazy, incredible truths. I write to have a tiny bit of influence on a universal conscience.
Richelle E. Goodrich
#54. You had no right." Oh, yes, he did. He suggested,
"Why don't you write that down. Put it in my handwriting. Perhaps I'll chance to read it, think I wrote it: Maybe then I'll believe you.
Judith Ivory
#55. For me, the day job comes first. That's why I call myself a diplomat who writes, not a writer who masquerades as a diplomat. If the day job demands it, I won't write at all. I write in what I call 'the crevices of my day job', and that comes only on weekends.
Vikas Swarup
#56. I don't understand - why won't you talk to me?
You sit in the corner all day and write in your book and look at everything but my face. You have so much to say to a piece of paper but I'm standing right here and you don't even acknowledge me. Juliette, please -
Tahereh Mafi
#57. Why should I write a play? I don't have to write a play, do I? But somehow, I think that's what I'm here for, so I'd better do it.
Tom Stoppard
#58. I'm not into, Hey, what's your sign? or any of that. But I don't know how I got here, and I don't know how I write songs. I don't know why I breathe.
Paul McCartney
#59. So, for instance, if you came to me, I'd ask, 'Do you want to write? Do you want to improvise? Why do you want to play this instrument? What do you want to do?'
Ornette Coleman
#60. I felt that there was no irony, it was a real compliment. Then she added with sudden harshness: "I don't want to read anything else that you write." "Why?" She thought about it. "Because it hurts me," and she struck her forehead with her hand and burst out laughing.
Elena Ferrante
#61. 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
#62. With Twitter and Instagram and all of these vehicles where fans can directly interact with you and get your attention, there's a little bit of an entitlement. Like, "Why won't you follow me or write me back?" Well, if I write you back, then I have to write everyone back.
Ingrid Michaelson
#63. All writing problems are psychological problems. Blocks usually stem from the fear of being judged. If you imagine the world listening, you'll never write a line. That's why privacy is so important. You should write first drafts as if they will never be shown to anyone.
Erica Jong
#64. (Seriously, if I catch another person commenting out something instead of deleting it, I will write a whole book titled Why God Invented Source Control.)
Anonymous
#65. I write mostly as a director. That's why my screenplays are very detailed. So I get into the images I see. I like that.
Deepa Mehta
#66. 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
#67. I post probably 5 to 10 times a day in my forum. I have a forum directly related to my blog where I will write my blog and people will disagree with me and call me an idiot so then I will say this is why I wrote that and blah, blah, blah. I spend a lot of time online.
Daniel Negreanu
#68. I love comedy and I would write things to myself as an exercise in writing. I didn't do well for years, and I quit. I started to break down why I was afraid and started to look at people I admired, like Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy, Freddie Prinze, George Carlin and all.
George Lopez
#70. There are a lot of great love stories. It's just the best thing. Why wouldn't you write about it? Why wouldn't you want to read about it? But it's hard to write about. It's weird to have such a powerful and universal feeling and hope that you can write that and make it real for people.
Isabel Gillies
#71. In matters like writing and painting, a man does what he has to do - if he has to write, why then, he writes; and if he doesn't feel the urgent need of writing, there are dozens of professions in which it is easier to earn a comfortable living.
Malcolm Cowley
#72. Why do I write? It's not that I want people to think I am smart, or even that I am a good writer. I write because I want to end my loneliness.
Jonathan Safran Foer
#73. 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
#74. It is often said of me - some intend it as a compliment, others as a complaint - that I write about a single subject: the Holocaust. I have no quarrel with that. Why shouldn't I accept, with certain qualifications, the place assigned to me on the shelves of libraries?
Imre Kertesz
#75. I'm not the 'chosen one.' I'm just one of many who have been given gifts. I can write. I can bloviate on TV. So I'm trying to use the gifts in a positive way. And I believe that's all directed. And that's why I'm here on the planet.
Bill O'Reilly
#76. This is why I write. Because poetry begins where death is robbed of the last word.
Odysseus Elytis
#77. I never willfully want to write the same record twice, which is probably why I jump from project to project. But I can't ignore that there are things that inspire me, and I love celebrating those.
Alan Palomo
#78. This is why I write: I believe the ordinary world is filled with extraordinary stories.
Lucy Ke
#79. Every day there are countless reasons why it's not a good day to write. Ignore those reasons and write anyway. Inspiration seldom visits a quiet keyboard.
John Burley
#80. I am building a stairway to the stars. I have the authority to take the whole of mankind up there with me. That is why I write.
Bessie Head
#81. Why does the writer write? The writer writes to serve
hopelessly he writes in the hope that he might serve
not himself and not others, but that great cold elemental grace that knows us.
Joy Williams
#82. A poet can feel free, in my estimation, to write a poem for himself. Or a painter can paint a painting for himself. You can write a short story for yourself. But for me, comedy by its nature is communal. If other people don't get it, I'm not sure why you are doing it.
Keegan-Michael Key
#83. It usually takes me about three years to research and write one of my historical sagas; this is one reason why I take medieval mystery breaks, for they can be completed in only a year.
Sharon Kay Penman
#84. That's why I haven't been so anxious. But now, lots of people write and say, 'I want to find out what you're doing.' So I know that this book will enlighten them.
Ornette Coleman
#85. What bullshit excuses do you have for not going after whatever it is that you want? Please, write in, tell us on social media why these are real excuses with #bullshit afterwards. Oh my God, man, that's such a great story.
Timothy Ferriss
#86. A writer worth his salt is not going to write about how damned lovely it is; it isn't, that's why so many people tell themselves it is [lovely].
John A. Williams
#87. Why do we write?
"To make suffering endurable
To make evil intelligible
To make justice desirable
and . . . to make love possible
Roger Rosenblatt
#88. 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
#89. Why it should be such an effort to write to the people one loves I can't imagine. It's none at all to write to those who don't really count.
Katherine Mansfield
#90. If Jimmy indeed cracked corn and you truly didn't care, why the fuck did you write a song about it? I call bullshit.
Jim Goad
#91. One cannot be taught to write. One can only learn to write by writing - and reading. Reading good books written by real artists - until you understand why they are good.
Truman Capote
#92. Changing anything in the past, if you believe it's possible, could alter the entire future of the world, including my own birth, so I'd change nothing. Not a thing. As for the future ... I think I'd like to see how it all ends, which is probably why I write about the future apocalypse so frequently.
Jeremy Robinson
#93. What is history? Its beginning is that of the centuries of systematic work devoted to the solution of the enigma of death, so that death itself may eventually be overcome. That is why people write symphonies, and why they discover mathematical infinity and electromagnetic waves.
Boris Pasternak
#94. Once I start writing, I am a huge reviser. To me writing is revising. I probably turn over every sentence that I write, to see if I have the rhythm right. That's why my first drafts take a really long time.
Matt De La Pena
#95. I think it's like when you lose something so close to you, it's like losing yourself. That's why at the end, it's hard for her to write even. She can hardly remember how. Because she barely knows what she is anymore.
Ava Dellaira
#97. You write five different things, and none of them work, and then suddenly something does, and you ask yourself, 'Why did that last one work?' I think that's the way the artistic mind works. All writers and artists of all kinds often don't know why things work.
Gilbert Morris
#98. You have two choices in life. You either die or do something with your time. You're going to be doing something - why not write?
James Lee Burke
#99. I began writing at the age of 5, but there was a dark period between the ages of 8 and 16 when I didn't write. I started again at 16 and have no idea why, but it was suddenly the only thing I wanted to do.
Margaret Atwood
#100. Why a ghost story? Well, I love them. They're fun to read - and, yes, fun to write.
Chris Bohjalian
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