Write About Yourself Quotes

#1. You have to be all too basely in love with yourself to write about yourself without shame.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

#2. Someone yelled at me once, 'You never write about yourself.' People used to get so mad at me for that. But my definition of myself is completely up for grabs. I'm everywhere, just like we all are.

Suzan-Lori Parks

#3. I've always thought it was arrogant to write about yourself, particularly when you're still alive.

Russell Means

#4. I think it's really boring, from the point of view of the novelist, to write about yourself. Tedious. But that's very hard to explain to people who really don't believe in the possibility of invention.

Peter Carey

#5. 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

#6. Sometimes writing about a TV show, or a movie, or a book, is the most honest way to write about yourself.

Aaron Burch

#7. Write 100 things that you love about your partner. It's another way of keeping yourself in check. It's hard to do.

Chris Pirillo

#8. When you accomplish a goal, don't cross it out. Instead, write 'victory' next to it and move on to the next one. This way, whenever you have a bad day, all you have to do is to review your victories to feel good about yourself.

Jack Canfield

#9. 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

#10. Write plays that matter. Raise the stakes. Shout, yell, holler, but make yourself heard. It's time for playwrights to reclaim the theatre. We do that by speaking from the heart about the things that matter most to us. If a play isn't worth dying for, maybe it isn't worth writing.

Terrence McNally

#11. It's a big thing to call yourself a poet. All I can say is that I have always written poems. I don't think I'm interested in any discussion about whether I'm a good poet, a bad poet or a great poet. But I am sure, I want to write great poems. I think every poet should want that.

Clive James

#12. I write what I think is funny and I write from a sense of popping a balloon or a sense of injustice, whether it's about yourself, or whether it's about something else. It's my worldview; it doesn't mean that everybody has to agree with it.

Denis Leary

#13. Forget all the rules. Forget about being published. Write for yourself and celebrate writing.

Melinda Rucker Haynes

#14. When you're writing personal stories, you have to be totally uncompromising - to the extent that you can be - about yourself. I know that if I am uber-uncompromising with myself, that gives me some latitude to write about others.

Rob Lowe

#15. It's way easier to write for other people. Yourself isn't in it. When you write for yourself, you overthink, and you become paranoid. When you write for others, it isn't about you.

Sam Dew

#16. Don't worry about never having time to write. Just write what you can in the time you do have and give yourself a big clap on the back, followed by a double latte and a blueberry muffin.

Rachel Johnson

#17. Never sit staring at a blank page or screen. If you find yourself stuck, write. Write about the scene you're trying to write. Writing about is easier than writing, and chances are, it will give you your way in.

Laini Taylor

#18. Take some wood and canvas and nails and things. Build yourself a theater, a stage, light it, learn about it. When you've done that you will probably know how to write a play.

Eugene O'Neill

#19. A non-event ... is better to write about than an event, because with a non-event you can make up the meaning yourself, it means whatever you say it means.

Margaret Atwood

#20. You can write better about a place you've seen for yourself. You don't have to have been there - I've sure written about places I've never seen - but it does help.

Harry Turtledove

#21. When you write a song it's sometimes in a desperate moment whn you can't really articulate it. What I love about lyrics is what T.S. Eliot said: 'Good poetry is felt before it is heard.' I'm a believer in that. It's those moments when you sit yourself down, and talk to yourself in the mirror.

Marcus Mumford

#22. The fact of the matter is that you should really stop concerning yourself with writing a book because anyone can write a book that totally sucks. There is nothing special about that.

Ashly Lorenzana

#23. I used to give her [my wife] to read the column every week before I sent it to the editors. And sometimes she was so mad - are you crazy? You're not going to send that, or, you're not going to write that about me. So I would go, OK. You have five hours. Go ahead, write the column yourself.

Sayed Kashua

#24. My main piece of advice would be don't worry about being published - just write a really good book, but also don't be afraid to write a bad book. Give yourself permission to fail, and don't be afraid.

David Levithan

#25. Sit and quiet yourself. Luxuriate in a certain memory and the details will come. Let the images flow. You'll be amazed at what will come out on paper. I'm still learning what it is about the past that I want to write. I don't worry about it. It will emerge. It will insist on being told.

Frank McCourt

#26. You don't have to always write about big stuff. Writing is about expressing yourself, you know? It can be about small stuff, too.

Mick Jones

#27. Readers would email me and say, 'Please write a novel about so-and-so,' but it has to come from yourself and not so much from your readership.

Susan Vreeland

#28. The more I write the more I learn about writing. It is easy to say what looks good or sound good on paper until you experience it for yourself.

Jeanette Michelle

#29. Don't get hung up on the size. If you feel bad about yourself because a 12 is what fits, take a Sharpie, and write '6' on the label.

Stacy London

#30. When you can bring yourself to write about it one day, you will find it all less painful. It is a catharsis of sorts, but the process can be brutal. Don't do it until you're ready.

Danielle Steel

#31. Nothing is better for a young journalist than to go and write about something that other people don't know about. If you can afford to send yourself to some foreign part, I still think that's by far the best way to break in.

Tina Brown

#32. Freedom. Writing should be all about freedom. Free yourself from societal constraints when you write. Create true Art.

Isabeau Kelm

#33. I tell people not to write too soon about their lives. Writing about yourself too young is loaded with psychological complexities.

Mary Karr

#34. There's always ways of motivating yourself to higher levels. Write about it, dream about it. But after that, turn it into action. Don't just dream.

Dan Gable

#35. Let life be the foundation. Be brave. Wander deep inside yourself to the little room no one knows about. Fling the door wide open and write.

Christy Hall

#36. If you ask yourself 'What's the best thing that happened today?' It actually forces a certain kind of cheerful retrospection that pulls up from the recent past things to write about that you wouldn't otherwise think about.

Austin Kleon

#37. Stop being self-conscious when you write.
You are the expert about the world you are creating,
no one else. So be bold and write on.

Nirav Sanchaniya

#38. Young writers reasonably say, 'I don't know what to write about,' so writing about yourself is a very literal way to begin.

Susanna Moore

#39. I had already seen the end of fall come through boyhood, youth and young manhood, and in one place you could write about it better than in another. That was called transplanting yourself, I thought, and it could be as necessary with people as with other sorts of growing things.

Ernest Hemingway,

#40. I think it's nearly impossible to write something fictional without having it be about yourself in some way or another.

Jami Attenberg

#41. In my world, there are no simple questions, and precious few answers of any kind. If you are going to write about me, you must resign yourself to that.

John Banville

#42. With writing, I think you have to be honest with yourself. I have a certain kind of writing; that is, I like to really embellish the human spirit. You have to write about something you have a feel for.

Sylvester Stallone

#43. Don't ever write anything you don't like yourself and if you do like it, don't take anyone's advice about changing it. They just don't know.

Raymond Chandler

#44. One could write a play about such an idea." "It has been done," said Poirot. "But console yourself, Hastings," he added kindly. "Because a theme has been used once, there is no reason why it should not be used again. Compose your drama.

Agatha Christie

#45. I mean, what can you say about how you write your books? What I mean is, first you've got to think of something, and then when you've thought of it you've got to force yourself to sit down and write it. That's all." ~ Mrs. Oliver

Agatha Christie

#46. I don't have to live the lives of my characters to write about them. It's about really putting yourself in their shoes.

Jodi Picoult

#47. Why wouldn't you write to escape yourself as much as you might write to express yourself? It's far more interesting to write about others.

Susan Sontag

#48. Habits of an empowerED teacher: "read, notice, think, make theories about how writing works, imagine possibilities, write yourself; it isn't magic, it's just slow, creative work.

Penny Kittle

#49. Write 1000 words a day. That's only about four pages, but force yourself to do it. Put your finger down your throat and throw up. That's what writing's all about.

Ray Bradbury

#50. 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

#51. I thought it would be interesting to write a song about a lonely person who is scared to see the truth that is right in from of him. I thought it would be interesting if you could watch yourself from a distance.

Matthew Shultz

#52. Fiction is about everything human and we are made out of dust, and if you scorn getting yourself dusty, then you shouldn't try to write fiction. It's not a grand enough job for you.

Flannery O'Connor

#53. Who were my fictitious witches and what did they mean? Never ask that of yourself while writing. It may stop you cold. Just trust that if you believe in your characters, others will too. ... Whenever I thought too critically about my work, I couldn't write.

Erica Jong

#54. I think that in order to get better as an athlete and to see whatever kind of results you're after, you have to make goals. Whether you write them down or tell someone about them, it's important to set goals for yourself in order to achieve any kind of success.

Abby Wambach

#55. Still is just the right way to be. You rise in the morning to go about your day. You remember a friend who has troubles. You don't quibble with yourself about whether to call her; you don't write a reminder on your Palm Pilot or in your planner to make the call tomorrow. You just call. Simple.

C. Terry Warner

#56. Kids love me because I write stories that tell them about their capacity for evil. I'm one of the few writers who lets you cleanse yourself that way.

Ray Bradbury

#57. Because you fight it out, and stumble, and write bad poetry, and pick yourself up again, and at the end, hopefully, someday youre sitting with your kid on her bedroom floor, talking about how you screwed everything up too.

Josie Bloss

#58. How do you write when you're not miserable? The solution, of course, is to make yourself miserable about not writing.

Jerry Stahl

#59. I've heard Stephen King say that when you write a novel you end up revealing everything about yourself.

Ernest Cline

#60. Exposing characters and their shortcomings gives me great comfort. It's always great to write about someone more mixed up than yourself.

Matthew Nable

#61. You should write, first of all, to please yourself. You shouldn't care a damn about anybody else at all. But writing can't be a way of life - the important part of writing is living. You have to live in such a way that your writing emerges from it.

Doris Lessing

#62. You need that pride in yourself, as well as a sense, when you are sitting on Page 297 of a book, that the book is going to be read, that somebody is going to care. You can't ever be sure about that, but you need the sense that it's important, that it's not typing; it's writing.

Roger Kahn

#63. These days, my subjects are murder and mayhem and other terrible things that happen to people - things that are even worse than cutting yourself shaving. And these are not the sorts of things you feel the need to experience before you write about them.

Linwood Barclay

#64. Don't let yourself be. Find something new to try, something to change. Count how often it succeeds and how often it doesn't. Write about it. Ask a patient or a colleague what they think about it. See if you can keep the conversation going.

Atul Gawande

#65. Self-discovery in songwriting, bringing something forth that's instructive to yourself - some of the best songs that you will ever write are the ones where you didn't have to think about any of that stuff, but nonetheless that's what's happening in the song.

Jackson Browne

#66. A customer talking about their experience with you is worth ten times that which you write or say about yourself.

David J. Greer

#67. Do be kind to yourself. Fill pages as quickly as possible; double space, or write on every second line. Regard every new page as a small triumph, until you get to page 50. Then calm down, and start worrying about the quality. Do feel anxiety - it's the job.

Roddy Doyle

#68. The secret to being a writer is that you have to write. It's not enough to think about writing or to study literature or plan a future life as an author. You really have to lock yourself away, alone, and get to work.

Augusten Burroughs

#69. Never give up. And most importantly, be true to yourself. Write from your heart, in your own voice, and about what you believe in.

Louise Brown

#70. It's amazing what you find out about yourself when you write in the first person about someone very different from you.

Doris Lessing

#71. The personal screenplay- where you dive into the terrifying depths of your soul, unearth the most intimate details about yourself, and put it on paper for the world to see. Proceed with caution, for madness lies ahead.

A.D. Posey

#72. When you die, others who think they know you, will concoct things about you ... Better pick up a pen and write it yourself, for you know yourself best.

Sholom Aleichem

#73. But we're not being educated in how to be, only in how to accomplish. So it's all about acquisition, about getting stuff we don't have ... As soon as you realize it's a thought pattern, you can write yourself a restraining order.

Jon Kabat-Zinn

#74. If you feel something calling you to dance or write or paint or sing, please refuse to worry about whether you're good enough. Just do it. Be generous. Offer a gift to the world that no one else can offer: yourself.

Glennon Doyle Melton

#75. Write about what you care about. If you do that, you're probably going to do your best writing, reach off the page and touch the reader. How are you going to make the reader care if you don't care yourself?

Jerry Spinelli

#76. You have to insulate yourself - I'm talking about from everything, people can be talking to you and you won't hear 'em - that's how you write a song. And I haven't been able to do that over here 'cause I'm so busy and then, when I am off, I want to get away from music.

Mel Tillis

#77. My life has been such a blur since I was 18, 19 years old. I haven't even had time to contemplate my own life. By forcing yourself to write your life story you learn a great deal about yourself.

Grant Achatz

#78. He wanted to write about country so it would be there like Cezanne had done it in a painting. You have to do it from inside yourself ... You could do it if you wanted to fight for it. If you'd lived right with your eyes.

Ernest Hemingway,