Top 100 Write What You Know Quotes
#1. 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
#2. You know what talent is? The curse of expectation. As a kid you have to deal with that, beat it somehow. If you can write, you think God put you on earth to blow Shakespeare away. Or if you can paint, maybe you think
I did
that God put you on earth to blow your father away.
Stephen King
#3. Write what you know will always be excellent advice for those who ought not to write at all. Write what you think, what you imagine, what you suspect!
Gore Vidal
#4. When we think we have something to say we are usually wrong. We are fooling ourselves. Trip into discovery. Don't write what you know, discover something new.
Marie Howe
#5. As I write, there is a craze for what is called psychoanalysis, or the cure of diseases by explaining to the patient what is the matter with him: an excellent plan if you happen to know what is the matter with him, especially when the explanation is that there is nothing the matter with him.
George Bernard Shaw
#6. No one I know actually reads what I write, so thank heavens for you strangers.
Sarah Vowell
#7. If you want to know what you look like, look into a mirror. If you want to know how you think, you should write
Dennis Prager
#8. For the years I spent working on it, 'Constellation' was the only novel I knew how to write, so maybe I still abided by the maxim? Regardless, I prefer the maxim: Write what you want to know, rather than what you already know.
Anthony Marra
#9. I think it's important to let each thing you write teach you how to write it. You must listen to what you do. Let it be in control. I don't step in until I know what it demands of me.
Jill Alexander Essbaum
#10. 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
#11. 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
#12. 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
#13. Write, write, write! Get your you-know-what in the chair and write more books: write the books of your heart and don't let stress steal your joy.
Sarra Cannon
#14. 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
#15. Don't 'write what you know.' Make up something new!
Joe Haldeman
#16. 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
#17. If you took love out of the equation, I wouldn't know what else to write about.
Nick Cave
#18. I really feel like sometimes I'll write these songs, and I'll just think, 'You know that couldn't have come from me alone.' I believe that God inspires us. I believe that He gives us gifts and talents, and it's up to us to develop them and choose what we do with them.
Lindsey Stirling
#20. You know, you should start to be in plays and things like that. Write some scripts. If you're an artist and you truly don't believe what you're spittin' then you need to really seriously be an actor then.
Chuck D
#21. I don't want somebody who writes like me [in my writing staff]. Because I can write like me. I know what I'm capable of and what my limitations are. If you're going to build an orchestra, you don't want all tubas - you want a violin and you want a cello and you want a drum set.
Tom Fontana
#22. 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
#23. Write what you want to read. The person you know best in this world is you. Listen to yourself. If you are excited by what you are writing, you have a much better chance of putting that excitement over to a reader.
Robin McKinley
#24. A cop told me, a long time ago, that there's no substitute for knowing what you're doing. Most of us scribblers do not. The ones that're any good are aware of this. The rest write silly stuff. The trouble is this: The readers know it.
George V. Higgins
#25. For a writer, they say write what you know. As a performer, you find it in yourself, in your heart. You relate to the character. You try to live it, try to have it be real for you.
Uma Thurman
#26. [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
#27. 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
#28. Creative writing teachers should be purged until every last instructor who has uttered the words 'Write what you know' is confined to a labor camp. Please, talented scribblers, write what you don't. The blind guy with the funny little harp who composed The Iliad, how much combat do you think he saw?
P. J. O'Rourke
#29. 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
#30. 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
#31. 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
#32. People will think you brilliant
only if you tell them what they know.
To avoid being thought brilliant,
avoid knowing what they know.
Write to discover to yourself
what you know.
Anarchism is Not Enough
Laura Riding Jackson
#33. You cannot write your character until you know how he or she thinks, until you know what their philosophy is in the world that they occupy.
Don Roff
#34. The old adage is, 'Write what you know.' But if you only do that, your work becomes claustrophobic. I say, 'Write what you want to know.'
Julia Glass
#35. 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
#36. 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
#37. I love to write rhymes that have that perfect jingle. You know what I'm saying when it makes your Heart tingle.
Stanley Victor Paskavich
#38. To me, it makes more sense to write different songs and to play different kinds of music and to find your own voice. But no matter what, get out and play for people. Get out and learn, and do everything that you can, you know?
Corey Taylor
#39. 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
#40. You can't always write what you know - not exactly what you know. You can, however, write what you see.
Brandon Sanderson
#41. There's a saying - "Write what you know." It's bad advice if you take it as an unbreakable rule, but good advice if you use it as a foundation.
Stephen King
#42. Don't write about what you don't know even if you don't know it.
Gertrude Stein
#43. I don't want to take all the time. I just want to do what you wrote and let me go from there. I don't want to miss something. You know, I'm not really a writer per se, but I can write. But I can't put a script together like they can.
Jackee Harry
#44. It's like if a young woman writes it, then it's chick lit. We don't care if she's slaying vampires or working as a nanny or living in Philadelphia. It's chick lit, so who cares? You know what we call what men write? Books.
Jennifer Weiner
#46. So, you know what? I'm not ready to write Gen Y off just yet and neither should you, because I think we're going to grow up just fine. Yeah, it pains me to admit it, but the kids are all right.
Sarra Manning
#47. 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
#48. Don't outline your stories. A lot of fiction workshops say you should. I say the opposite. I quote Grace Paley: "We write what we don't know we know."
Andre Dubus
#49. Rules such as "Write what you know," and "Show, don't tell," while doubtlessly grounded in good sense, can be ignored with impunity by any novelist nimble enough to get away with it. There is, in fact, only one rule in writing fiction: Whatever works, works.
Tom Robbins
#50. I feel like, when you turn on the radio and you hear a great song, you know it's a great song, and you sing along. We all know what a great song sounds like, so we all have that instinct, it's just being able to accept your own instincts when you write that song.
Kiesza
#51. My favorite music to sing would be my own songs, my original songs, just because I know them, you know I write the tunes, so my favorite songs are the newest ones that I write. That's what I like to sing the most, because it means something, it's real, it comes from me.
Paul McDonald
#52. I don't know if there is any one secret to successful writing, but one important step is to move beyond imitation and discover what you can write that no one else can - that is, find out who you are and write that in an appropriate narrative and style.
James Gunn
#53. They say, 'Write what you know.' What I know isn't cheerleader; it has a little bit of teeth to it.
Melissa Marr
#54. I mean, I don't think I would call Claus to do an album of big band tunes. You know, just like arrangers write for the artist they have in mind; you have to keep in mind if you're going to work with Claus Ogerman. You invite him to do what he does.
Diana Krall
#55. 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
#56. 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
#57. 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
#58. I characterize myself a little bit as a reluctant filmmaker. I learned from watching my friend in college stay up late at night, at 2 A.M., just to get the lighting right, and I thought, 'You know what, if that's what it's going to be like, I think I'm just going to write,' and I did that.
Tananarive Due
#59. If a happy ending is what you're after, stop the story where it makes you smile, or cry for laughter. In life, it's the rare sweetness to have tears of joy, or painless endings. People feel. It's what they know, and it's why i write.
Mark T. Barnes
#60. You know what's weird, I just write to write, with no intention, I just write.
Tommy Lee
#61. 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
#62. 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
#63. And you know what? Maybe Michael didn't write those notes. And maybe he doesn't
think I'm the Josiest girl in school.But he thought I looked nice in my pink dress. And that's all that matters to me.
Meg Cabot
#64. Why can I write 'South' with some assurance that you'll know I mean Richmond and don't mean Phoenix? What is it that the South's boundaries enclose?
John Shelton Reed
#65. 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
#66. I'm willing to write a check for $10,000 if someone can bring to me what I fell is ruining thousands of lives, destroying lives everyday. And I know that you know it's a little thing called Chupacabra.
Dane Cook
#67. I write the last line, and then I write the line before that. I find myself writing backwards for a while, until I have a solid sense of how that ending sounds and feels. You have to know what your voice sounds like at the end of the story, because it tells you how to sound when you begin.
John Irving
#68. 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
#69. You can only write what you know if you've lived, otherwise, you'll just be writing words.
Joseph Eastwood
#70. I can't tell you any more than any other writer can tell you why they write, and I don't know what my influences are.
Jean M. Auel
#71. You remember how you were taught to write. Your mother put a pencil in your hand, took your hand in hers, and began to move it. Since you did not know at all what she meant to do, you left your hand completely free in hers. This is like the power of God in our lives.
Anthony Of Sourozh
#72. It takes me a long time to write, and I trust myself, so I write very sparsely, so when I do, I know it's good, you know what I mean? Rather than writing a whole bunch and having to sort out what's good and what's not.
Earl Sweatshirt
#73. Write what you know. That should leave you with a lot of free time.
Howard Nemerov
#74. I think of talent as being God-given. I know that contradicts what a lot of people believe, but that's how I see it. I think the Beatles were meant to be, you know? So when I listen to Paul McCartney, I think, 'Here's the person that God gave the gift of allowing him to write 'Let It Be.'
Brandon Flowers
#75. I was just writing songs because, if a song shows up, you've gotta write it. I didn't know what to do with them. I didn't have any faith in my voice.
Benmont Tench
#76. I think all Internet comments should be disengaged. But I kind of live and die by it. It's completely irresistible. It's not like comedy. When I do a podcast or write an episode of TV, I have no feedback for that. That's the only way you know what you're doing is good or bad.
Harris Wittels
#77. Lat at nigh have you experienced a vision of the person you might become, the work you could accomplish, the realized being you were mean to be? Are you a writer who doesn't write, a painter who doesn't pain, an entrepreneur who never starts a venture? Then you know what Resistance is.
Steven Pressfield
#78. Don't write what you know. Write who you are. Write your heart and soul. Write what you dream of when you look to the stars.
Luke Taylor
#79. 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
#80. You know how before you buy a house you hire someone to come check it out and write a homebuyer's report? Someone should do that for husbands. Before you get married, you should have a complete inspection to find out what's broken, if it's fixable, and how much it will cost to repair.
Richard Paul Evans
#81. Certain teams are more careful in what they write. They generate less bugs. You can know that but it still doesn't mean there might be there might not be one bug that would be bad to ship the product with.
Bill Gates
#83. Any writing teacher tells you to write what you know, and for better or for worse, Washington is a world I know well.
Kristin Gore
#84. The only measure of what you believe is what you do. If you want to know what people believe, don't read what they write, don't ask what they believe, just observe what they do.
Bohdi Sanders
#85. I wasn't that good you know. What I was was a guy who could write a little, publishing in magazines surrounded by people who couldn't write at all. So I looked pretty good. But I never thought I was that good at all. All that I thought was that I tried to tell the truth.
Cornell Woolrich
#86. 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
#87. If you have a craftsman's command of the language and basic writing techniques you'll be able to write - as long as you know what you want to say.
Jeffery Deaver
#88. 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
#89. Life is a very orderly thing, but in fiction there is a huge liberation and freedom. I can do what I like. There's nothing that says I can't write a page of full stops. There is no 'should' involved, although you wouldn't know that from literary reviews and critics.
Kate Atkinson
#90. Most comedies are really hard to write, or to watch, because you kind of generally know what's coming.
Steve Martin
#91. When you start to write, things begin to come into focus in a way they don't when you're not writing. It's a very good way to find out how much you don't know because you learn specifically what you need to know that you don't know at the moment by writing.
David McCullough
#92. I'm just writing what I know. I've never been much of a reader of fantasy, and I think you write what you, personally, enjoy reading.
Sarah Dessen
#93. If you can't read and write you can't think. Your thoughts are dispersed if you don't know how to read and write. You've got to be able to look at your thoughts on paper and discover what a fool you were.
Ray Bradbury
#94. Write from what you know into what you don't know.
Grace Paley
#95. You don't write what you know, or you would write one thing. I never understood that. You write what you want to find out.
Nora Roberts
#96. They always say, doing what I do for a living, write what you know and then people will respond to it. I luckily had a very charming, lovable mom who I think everybody could see bits and pieces of their mom in. All I had to do was write a character that was like my mom, and it made my life easier.
Dan Fogelman
#97. I know what you're thinking - that anybody with proper sensitive feelings would rather scrub floors for a living. But I should scrub floors very badly, and I write detective stories rather well. I don't see why proper feelings should prevent me from doing my proper job.
Dorothy L. Sayers
#98. You don't push the button that says "Now I will write something that resonates in time." You don't know. It's what happens after a play is finished.
John Guare
#99. If you only write what you know, you'll never know anything else. If you only write what you see you'll never see anything else. In order to experience new things you must always step outside of your comfort zone, or your live you life never knowing anything new
Adam Snowflake
#100. I've been asked to write an autobiography, and I've started it a couple of times, on different angles, and maybe one day I will, but you know what? There's time for that because I'd like to have the whole story.
John Saxon
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