Top 90 Write About What You Know Quotes
#1. I'm a big eater. I mean, a lot of my stand-up is about food, and you write about what you know, and that's the only thing I know. I don't know anything else.
Jim Gaffigan
#2. I disagree with the advice of 'write about what you know.' Write about what you need to know, in an effort to understand.
Donald Windham
#3. When I write a story, I just wanna tell you what's in my head. It can come from real life and then turn into fantasy, stuff just rhyming. And write about what you know. I just like to tell stories that have not been told or told from my perspective.
Nas
#5. For years I've wanted to write about the Australian countryside, but, like most Australians, I've only got a tourist's knowledge of it. I thought that if I disobeyed that basic rule of writing - write about what you know - I'd write a thin and inauthentic book.
Kate Grenville
#6. Don't write about what you know - write about what you're interested in. Don't write about yourself - you aren't as interesting as you think.
Tracy Chevalier
#7. People say to write about what you know. I'm here to tell you, no one wants to read that, cos you don't know anything. So write about something you don't know. And don't be scared, ever.
Toni Morrison
#8. Forget the boring old dictum "write about what you know." Instead, seek out an unknown yet knowable area of experience that's going to enhance your understanding of the world and write about that.
Rose Tremain
#9. And what happened was, it's the same thing an older, more successful writer of ficition might say to a student: write about what you know. And what I knew - of course I knew jazz, but I also knew country, blues and some rock and roll. And that came out.
Larry Coryell
#10. I hate that rule that says write about what you know, it leads to too many British novels about marriages going slightly wrong. Write about what you don't know, just act as though you do.
Jeff Noon
#11. There's always things that you know about that nobody else, because everybody's life is different. So you write about what you know. That's number one.
Jackie Collins
#12. You write about what you know. It makes everything easier, and also more truthful. In this case, I grew up in Oklahoma, and I grew up in the Cherokee Nation and I'm a member of the Cherokee Tribe. Oddly enough, I know a lot about robots and Oklahoma, and so that's what comes out in my writing.
Daniel H. Wilson
#13. I don't want you to write about what you know, because you don't know anything. I don't want to hear about your boyfriend or your grandma ... I'm getting a little tired of 'my life story as fiction'. Please don't tell me about your little life - is there nothing larger? More important?
Toni Morrison
#14. You write about what you know, and you write about what you want to know.
Joyce Maynard
#15. [Ernest ]Hemingway always said, "Write about what you know." I think you can do that, and if you want to write about what you don't know, you can. It just takes a lot more work.
William T. Vollmann
#16. I think you can write about what you know for about an hour and a half. Then you have to start bullshitting. So I say, lie to me and lie to me well. The only way to write well is to write accurately. Accuracy is not about the reader, it's about the subject and the character.
A.M. Homes
#17. The best thing to do is to write about what you know, and if you write about what you know you can always pull those nice little tidbits that hook people, that shows that you know about this world and can bring people into a world that they may not know nothing about.
Ice Cube
#18. Do not copy my style! The first rule of writing is write about what you know, not what you think you know. So, think about what you've done in your life and write about that.
Jackie Collins
#19. Write about what you know and care deeply about. When one puts one's self on paper - that is what is called good writing.
Joel Chandler Harris
#20. When you're writing a book, you don't really think about it critically. You don't want to know too well what you're doing. First, you write the book, then you find the justification for it.
E.L. Doctorow
#21. You really can't write unless you read. You have to know what the game is all about.
Harold Brodkey
#22. Do not concern yourself with what you know or what you do not know. Do not think about the past or the future, merely allow God's hands to write the surprises of the present on each new day.
Paulo Coelho
#23. I've always believed that you write to discover what you think. On most subjects, if I'm asked what do I think about them, I'd say I don't know, I'll have to write them down.
Richard Eyre
#24. You can't write a song out of thin air you have to feel and know what you are writing about.
Irving Berlin
#25. When people start to write articles about what might be wrong with the 'Today' show you know where you should point the finger, point it at me because I have been there the longest. And it's my responsibility.
Matt Lauer
#26. In the theater, when people hear that you're writing a play, they want to know what it's all about, whether there's a role for them. You write it fairly quickly, and it becomes a group activity before you're really ready to have company.
Marsha Norman
#27. You know, I used to say, when people say, 'How do you think about what to write about in the poems every week?' And I say, 'Well, I have to turn it in on Monday, so on Sunday nights I turn the shower to iambic pentameter and it sort of works out that way.'
Calvin Trillin
#28. Folk like to pretend they know everything about the world. Rich folk especially. Maps are great for that. [ ... ] You don't have blanks on your map, so the folks who draw them shade in a piece and write, 'The Eld.' You might as well burn a hole right through the map for what good that does.
Patrick Rothfuss
#29. Write what you know. Write what you want to know more about. Write what you're afraid to write about.
Cecil Murphey
#30. If you write what you know about, you will always be on safe ground. I am very edgy and nervous about going into territories I know nothing about. That's why you don't find much high finance, group sex, or yachting parties in my stories.
Maeve Binchy
#31. Traditions of the Shinobi: Those who are active as shinobi should try their best to see, hear, or write down what they should know and, in secret, to collect the information about a place, even while in battle. This will enable you to steal into the enemy territory with tactics.
Yoshie Minami
#32. Do you know what every instructor in the world wants from you? He or she really, really wants you to do two things: Demonstrate that you have understood the course material and write intelligently about your subject.
Scribendi
#33. What makes for great art is the courage to speak and write and paint what you know and care about.
Audrey Flack
#34. You can write about other people and their ideas and life without having lived it, but even your perception of that is going to be colored by what you know and what you experience. And this is undeniable.
James Salter
#35. If you want to know why all writers are a little crazy read 'The Midnight Disease' by Alice W. Flaherty. She talks about the drive to write, writer's block, and the creative brain. I know what's wrong with me!
Dorothea Benton Frank
#36. That's such a wonderful thing about the mixing process is when you write the demo or the track, [and] it sort of goes through a couple of different changes and you don't really know what tracks are going to end up working out.
Lizzy Plapinger
#37. What everybody is well advised to do is to not write about your own life, this is if you want to write fast. You will be writing about your own life anyway but you won't know it.
Kurt Vonnegut
#38. I don't have any regrets, really, except that one. I wanted to write about you, about us, really. Do you know what I mean? I wanted to write about everything, the life we're having and the lives we might have had. I wanted to write about all the ways we might have died.
Michael Cunningham
#39. The one thing emphasized in any creative writing course is 'write what you know,' and that automatically drives a wooden stake through the heart of imagination. If they really understood the mysterious process of creating fiction, they would say, 'You can write about anything you can imagine.'
Tom Robbins
#40. If someone's going to talk about me, I'd want it to be positively. The way many write, you'd think only bad things were interesting. If we don't think positive, what's the use? It's a lot more fun, you know.
Dorothy Stratten
#41. You'd only write what you know and what you know is what you do and the people you know. So you'd write about them or the people you have met casually. It's part of your life.
Carl Reiner
#42. Writing a novel is always complicated, it's not like you snap your fingers and go, 'Ah, I know what I'll write'. For me, a lot of the time, I have to write and as I write, I learn about the story.
Reif Larsen
#43. People might ask me, What do you propose instead? I propose nothing. I am a mere novelist, I just write about the world as I see it. It is not my job to transform it. I cannot transform it all by myself, and I wouldn't even know how to. I limit myself to saying what I believe the world to be.
Jose Saramago
#44. I would really like to have had the guts and the energy and so on to be able to write about, you know, people having battles with the DHSS. But I ... I haven't. They're dull things. I mean, I'm an arty person. OK, I write overblown, purple, self-indulgent prose. So fucking what?
Angela Carter
#45. You usually dont know what you are going to write about so you go to the places and talk to the people who were identified with the events.
Leon Uris
#46. I think I took a few stabs at writing socially conscious lyrics. I had never intended to write a song about the Gulf War, but when I wrote "Before You Hit The Floor," I didn't know what the hell was going on in the world.
Bucky Pope
#47. To write well about the elegant world you have to know it and experience it to the depths of your being ... what matters is not whether you love it or hate it, but only to be quite clear about your position regarding it.
Italo Calvino
#48. Every character sees the world through a framework of education and experience that they're proud experts about. To write a character, find out what they know best, and THEN you'll know how they'll describe a "hot day." Or a "pretty girl."
Chuck Palahniuk
#49. One of the things that put me off writing for a while was that piece of advice everybody gives new writers: 'Write what you know.' Nobody would ever want to read about my boring life! But I do know a lot of things about different societies' cultures and mythologies. The way people were and are.
Carol Berg
#50. Don't imitate. Write what you know about, that has to be your goal.
Roman Coppola
#52. I've got to write about my character every day. I've got to find out where he lives, what bus he catches to school, and stuff like that. You've got to know every little thing about him so when you do it, it feels natural.
Kodi Smit-McPhee
#53. I really want to be a writer but I don't know what to write about"
"You could write about us
Stephen Chbosky
#54. Ever hear the expression "write what you know?" My version says "write what you want to know." If you want to know about the history of Spain, write about the history of Spain - fiction or nonfiction. If your fascinated by the old west, maybe your character lives there.
Amelia Atwater-Rhodes
#55. Don't write what you know - what you know may bore you, and thus bore your readers. Write about what interests you - and interests you deeply - and your readers will catch fire at your words.
Valerie Sherwood
#56. 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
#57. Even though I don't write about things that come from my life because I'm lucky, and I live in a great place with great kids and, you know, a great husband, I think you can find threads of me in the characters, so that's really what being a writer is, probably.
Jodi Picoult
#58. If you took love out of the equation, I wouldn't know what else to write about.
Nick Cave
#59. I like when they say a movie is inspired by a true story. That's kind of silly. "Hey, Mitch, did you hear that story about that lady who drove her car into the lake with her kids and they all drowned?" "Yeah, I did, and you know what - that inspires me to write a movie about a gorilla!"
Mitch Hedberg
#60. For every book that I write ... I develop a history for each person and make sure they are well rounded and flawed. You have to know everything about them from their shoe size, to where they went to school, to what their first pet was, to what they like to eat, to what they want out of life.
Jojo Moyes
#61. When it comes to people
don't write about who you know; but what you know of human nature.
Candace Bushnell
#62. I don't actually talk about my books much, because I find if I talk about them I don't want to write them anymore. I write to find out what happens. You know how you read a book? That's what I'm doing except I'm just doing it a lot slower because it takes a lot longer to do.
Charles De Lint
#63. Do you know anything about fashion magazines? Being treated like superficial bimbos by men like you, and having to write about designer brands. Do you know what that feels like?
Suh Jung
#64. There's not that much known, but there's a lot you can write about what's not known, why it isn't known and who doesn't know it.
Richard Ellis
#65. That adage about 'Write what you know' is basically the opposite of the way I function. I write about what I'm curious to find out.
Jennifer Egan
#66. When you know who you are as an artist and you have your own identity and got it figured out it helps you know what to write about.
Keifer Thompson
#67. I don't know what any of my songs are about. I don't sit down to write about anything. They're about whatever you want. I don't pick subjects. I just start.
Liam Gallagher
#68. What I do is I write mainly about very personal and rather lonely feelings, and I explore them in a different way each time. You know, what I do is not terribly intellectual. I'm a pop singer for Christ's sake. As a person, I'm fairly uncomplicated.
David Bowie
#69. 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
#70. I usually don't write songs by people calling me and saying, 'Write a song about this.' Usually I'm just going with what I want to write, so you never know.
Diane Warren
#71. Don't lament so much about how your career is going to turn out. You don't have a career. You have a life. Do the work. Keep the faith. Be true blue. You are a writer because you write. Keep writing and quit your bitching. Your book has a birthday. You don't know what it is yet.
Cheryl Strayed
#72. I never dreamed that the little ditties I wrote about annoying customers or bagel recipes would turn into a full-length musical comedy. But a very wise person told me to 'write what you know'. So I did.
Rob McClure
#73. I just don't know how to write a love letter. What can you say to a girl that shows you really like her?"
"How about, enclosed please find a cookie?
Charles M. Schulz
#74. When you write songs, you gotta be like a receiving station: you gotta be aware of what's going on around you. I never know what a song is going to be about before I write it.
Tony Joe White
#75. Don't write about what you don't know even if you don't know it.
Gertrude Stein
#76. Try to avoid falseness and strain. Write what you really know about. Make it new. Don't invent melodrama for the sake of it. Don't try to run, let alone fly, before you can walk with ease.
A.S. Byatt
#77. When you watch a Coen brothers movie, it is always so certain about what it is trying to portray. That is their strength. The minute they write a word, they know how it will look on-screen. They are very purposeful, with no kind of mistakes.
Eric Fellner
#78. 'Write what you know' works, but it's limiting. Write what fascinates you. Write what you can't stop thinking about.
Brian Koppelman
#79. That's what a story must feel like to me. It's not, "I want to write about a gravedigger." But you're walking along and - boop! shovel. "Ok, what does one do with a shovel? Digs a hole. Why? I don't know yet. Dig the hole! Oh, look a body."
George Saunders
#80. What's that line from TS Eliot? To arrive at the place where you started, but to know it for the first time. I'm able to write about a breakup from a different place. Same brokenness. Same rock-bottom. But a little more informed, now I'm older. Thank God for growing up.
Alanis Morissette
#81. You have to know human behaviour ... And the quality of your writing is absolutely capped at your understanding of human behaviour. You'll never write above what you know about people.
Tony Gilroy
#82. My films are misinterpreted all the time. I don't mind that. Everybody's films are misinterpreted. But there's no malice or stupidity in the people that misinterpret them. You know what you do, but someone else sees it, and they want to talk about it or write about it, and so they misinterpret them.
Woody Allen
#83. 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
#84. People say write what you know, but I say write about what makes your blood race. Write about that, and your words will become sails filled with a strong wind.
Ellery Adams
#85. You know what's a great way of tricking people into thinking you're a genius? Write a show about geniuses!
Lin-Manuel Miranda
#86. You can only write about what you don't know, and find out about it in the writing.
Jessamyn West
#87. Do you think maybe your writing isn't going anymore because you're unhappy? Because you're not living the life you could? A life worth writing about? You must know that cliche-write what you know-but what do you know, Bree, when you shut the world out?
Holly Bourne
#88. Bad books on writing tell you to "WRITE WHAT YOU KNOW", a solemn and totally false adage that is the reason there exist so many mediocre novels about English professors contemplating adultery.
Joe Haldeman
#89. 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
#90. Write about what you don't know about what you know.
Eudora Welty
Famous Authors
Popular Topics
Scroll to Top
