Top 100 Write What You Want Quotes
#1. Write what you want to write; don't fear about who will read it.
Debasish Mridha
#2. 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
#3. We're not mindless golems, designed to think exactly the same thing. To try to suppress those thoughts is no better than slavery, and being free to say what you want, write what you want or draw what you want, as long as it doesn't offend anyone... That's no freedom at all.
T.J. Dixon
#4. Just write what YOU want to write; how YOU want to write it!
K.D. Faerydae
#5. Don't write a book for an audience, write what you want to write and then find its audience
Sue Greensmith
#6. Write as an audience member. Write what you want to see, feel and hear.
Carol Hovsepian
#7. 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
#8. Write what you want bottomless from bottom of the mind,
Jack Kerouac
#9. Don't try to outguess what's going on in publishing, and write what you want to write.
George Singleton
#10. You know how it is with writing. You just write what you want to write. There's no way to predict what is good or bad. You just do what you think is funny, and either it works or you're finished. It's impossible to predict anything.
Colin Quinn
#11. 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
#12. Today, when we live in a what is called Western democracy here ... you're not taken seriously all the time. You can write what you want because nobody cares about it. But at that time, they cared very much about what you wrote, so that's an entirely different feeling.
Stefan Heym
#14. You have tremendous freedom in the young adult book world to write what you want. You can put R-rated content in a book that you can't in a similarly targeted movie.
Ned Vizzini
#15. You guys will write what you want to write, people will say what they want to say. I can't control any of that. All I can control is how I play. I'm trying to be the best player I can be.
Jason Spezza
#16. As a writer, you have to first of all write what you want to. Listen to advice, by all means, but don't get bogged down in it.
Joe Abercrombie
#17. Write what you know. Write what you want to know more about. Write what you're afraid to write about.
Cecil Murphey
#18. Write what you want to write and would like to read, not for any invisible audience. Your readers will find you.
David John Griffin
#19. Write what you want to write. That's the only advice a writer will ever need.
Chloe Thurlow
#20. If you care about the news and write what you want to read - not just what you think Google search wants to read - there are people out there who want to read it.
Rachel Sklar
#21. I love reading epic fantasies and big fat books and so I really wanted to write one. I think you always write what you want to read.
Cassandra Clare
#22. Be fearless. Write what you want. Write how you want. Create art.
Beth Revis
#23. Write what you really care about. Write what you want to say because that is the experience that always rates as genuine on the page.
Betsy Beers
#24. 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
#25. The banal advice of writ in teachers is "write what you know," but the truth is, you don't know a place until you write it. "Write what you want to know" is more like it.
Phyllis Rose
#26. Skill in writing frees you to write what you want to write. It may also show you what you want to write. Craft enables art.
Ursula K. Le Guin
#27. There's always a question of duration, there's a question of who the orchestra is. No one is free to write what you want - you collaborate on a film score, and one of the good things is that someone else's work is motivating you.
Michael Nyman
#28. 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
#29. All the definitions people want to put on you in terms of what kind of writer you are come with hidden meanings. If you're writing science fiction, you're writing rocket ships. If you write dystopian fiction, it's inequity where The Man must be fought.
Paolo Bacigalupi
#30. 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
#31. Whatever you do, make sure you want to write more than you want to be a writer. Make sure you want to act more than you want to be an actor. That is what will sustain you.
Bradley Whitford
#32. 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
#33. It's my job, too, to keep up with pop culture and what the kids are into 'cause you don't want to sound like an old man trying to write for kids. I spend a lot of my time spying on them.
R.L. Stine
#34. I would say if you want to write, write what you care about. I think that's the most important thing. I think if you write what you care about, you stand a better chance of having the reader care about your story.
Jerry Spinelli
#35. It's amazing, if you know what you want to say, how fast it is to write.
Evan Davis
#36. If you're in a country and you want to learn about it, it's a good idea to go and found out what they have to say for themselves; you might want to write a good story about it, when they're not looking.
Marion Davies
#37. To write a love letter, you have to start, without knowing, what you want to say, and end, without knowing what you have said.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
#38. Write what you know. But make sure someone else would want to know it too!
Matthew Culberson
#39. Life is what you make it. But if you can't make it as you want it... write it.
Alen B. Curtiss
#40. When I sit down to write, I don't think, 'OK, what is the next David O. Russell film I can write, or what is Harvey Weinstein going to want to buy?' Or even, 'What are filmgoers going to want.' I try to think, tell a good story. Just do what you do.
Matthew Quick
#41. When no one knows you, and you're just trying to break into stuff, it's so good because you can write whatever you want and just say it; it's just between you and the audience. There's no process or worrying about anyone else interfering with what you're doing.
Chris Lilley
#42. 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
#43. Obviously, in journalism, you're confined to what happens. And the tendency to embellish, to mythologize, it's in us. It makes things more interesting, a closer call. But journalism taught me how to write a sentence that would make someone want to read the next one.
Amy Hempel
#44. When I write a book ... it's the same essential approach to music as with books. It has to be something I want to hear or read. Hopefully the audience comes along, since that's the only way you can write righteously. I have to ask, 'What do I want to hear?' not 'What do people want to hear?'
Corey Taylor
#45. 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
#46. 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
#47. When I was little, I had to write down what I wanted to be when I grew up, and I wrote, 'I want to be an actress-singer-dancer because you can be a rich fairy princess and tell someone off.'
Ellen Greene
#48. You write about what you know, and you write about what you want to know.
Joyce Maynard
#49. If you were to die tomorrow, what would you want people to say about you?
Write it down. That is your personal vision statement.
Unknown
#50. There is no trick to it. If you like to write and want to write, you write, no matter where you are or what else you are doing or whether anyone pays any heed.
E.B. White
#51. I still think that of all the people doing top fiction today, John D. MacDonald is the best.He was my model as a kid. If there are people out there that want to write, all you need to do is read 20 of his stories to get an idea what it takes to make a story kick over.
Stephen King
#52. Writing is pretty flexible work, don't you think? If you want to surf, you just have to get a lot done when the waves are lousy. That's what I'm always telling myself, anyway - write while the surf's down!
William Finnegan
#53. You're a reader as well as a writer, so write what you'd want to read.
Cassandra Clare
#54. I write what I want and how I want. Reviews do not need to be condescending nor do they need to tell me to read your book (if you're a fellow author). Either you like the books or you don't. That's all there is to it.
Amanda Byrd
#55. [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
#56. When you write things down, you commit to doing them. If you simply tell me what you want to do, there is really no commitment to getting it done.
David Cottrell
#57. Sometimes you want to read what people write about you, obviously.
Ansel Elgort
#58. You can't write good characters if you can't imagine what it's like being in another person's skin. And if you can imagine that, you naturally want other people's lives to be better. You want to make that happen.
Patrick Rothfuss
#59. If you want to write what the world is about, you have to write details ... real life is in the dishes. Real life is pushing strollers up the street, folding T-shirts, the alarm clock going off early and you dropping into bed exhausted every night. That's real life.
Anna Quindlen
#60. Most games follow a real railroad plot, no matter what you want, you're following their storyline to its unavoidable conclusion. I'd like to write a game where your character can follow any number of possible story arcs and sub-plots.
Patrick Rothfuss
#61. When you write what you know, you stay in control. One of the first things I encourage my writing students to do is to lose control - say what they want to say, break structure.
Natalie Goldberg
#62. When I make a film - I direct my own film, I write my own script - that's what I want to hear from the audience. 'Oh, thank you, Jackie!'
Jackie Chan
#63. 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
#64. My idea of art is, you write something that makes people feel so strongly that they get some conviction about who they want to be or what they want to do. It's morally useful not in a political way, but it makes your heart bigger; it's emotionally and spiritually empowering.
Mary Karr
#65. 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
#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 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
#68. No man has your love at heart, they all pretend to be what they are not. They would rather write you out of relevance and reckoning than recommend you for elevation and prosperity. Your destiny is in your hands and it will take you to scribble boldly what you want the world to read about you....
Bayode Ojo
#69. You have to write down what you really want to do in this life and then you have to write down what you have to do every day to achieve the goal
Sunday Adelaja
#70. Students who attend what they considered to be their first-choice school were less likely to persist in a biomedical or behavioral science major, they write. You think you want to go to the fanciest school you can. You don't.
Malcolm Gladwell
#71. Tell me about school, NoahNoah," the old man says..."Our teacher made us write a story about what we want to be when we're big," Noah tells him. "What did you write?""I wrote that I wanted to concentrate on being little first.
Fredrik Backman
#72. Write down what you want your destiny to be, and in so doing you will live your dreams.
Stephen Richards
#73. 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
#74. The last thing reporters and editors want to be told is what to do and how to write. They don't want to be some politically correct, Orwellian, kind of like "you're telling me how to write about ... ?"
Jose Antonio Vargas
#75. People always put their own spin on things, remember what they want to remember, and somewhere in the middle of it all is the truth - the real version - one you could only write yourself if you were willing to.
Jessi Kirby
#76. The best advice is not to write what you know, it's to write what you like. Write the kind of story you like best - write the story you want to read. The same principle applies to your life and your career:
Austin Kleon
#77. You write who you are. But you also cheat, and youwrite what you want to be. It's embarrasing to be the guy who madethe movie, knowing you're not exactly who you want to be.
Paul Thomas Anderson
#78. 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
#79. I had to re-write "Philosophy" a lot. It was more obscure than what's in the book now, even! Some things I had to go back to and excise my former self, who was even more dense. I think you should teach whatever you want, Brian! That's the point of books like White Girls, to help free our thoughts!
Hilton Als
#80. I work in an old tradition that goes back to the ancient Greeks. You hold a mirror to crime to see what's happening in society. I could never write a crime story just for the sake of it, because I always want to talk about certain things in society.
Henning Mankell
#81. You want your fans to like what you do, because it's coming from your heart and soul. You write it, you produce this thing. It's like your baby.
Gloria Estefan
#82. 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
#83. 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
#84. If you want to be an artist, truly try to write what you believe, and if you write when you don't believe then you should try to become an actor.
Chuck D
#85. Don't try to guess what it is people want and give it to them. Don't ask for a show of hands. Try your best to write what you like, what you think your friends would like and what you think your father would like and then cross your fingers ... The most valuable thing you have is your own voice.
Aaron Sorkin
#86. Read heavily in the area where you want to write. Be aware of what's selling and what's doing well but don't try to write to market trends; they are fleeting.
Jeff Abbott
#87. We lie. That's what we do. You're selling me a line of bullshit and you want me to sell you a line of bullshit back so you can write a major line of bullshit and be paid for it.
Jennifer Egan
#88. I myself love to read those Victorian novels which go on and on, and you don't read them in one sitting. You might read one over the course of a summer, but that isn't what I want to write.
Joan Didion
#89. As an actor, you're completely at the mercy of other people. You basically go begging for the opportunity to work. As a writer, at least nobody can tell me what to do. I can write what I want. I might not sell it, but at least I'm in control.
Harold Ramis
#90. Better that you should take the chance of trying something that is close to your heart, you think is what you want to write, and if they do not publish it, put it in your drawer. But maybe another day will come and you will find a place to put that.
Gay Talese
#91. You never know what you'll want to write until it starts writing itself in your head.
Jill Ker Conway
#92. I write all the time, but you just want to be careful what you put out. That's all. You want to have the confidence that you've done what you need to do to it, because otherwise it's an exercise in vanity.
Dylan Moran
#93. I don't write jokes first. I write down topics. I think of what I want to talk about, and then I write the jokes - they don't write me ... And even if you don't think it's funny, you won't think it's boring. You might disagree, but you'll listen. And maybe even laugh as you disagree.
Chris Rock
#94. I hate politics. I like to write about it, but to get involved in it, to try and make a lot of ignorant people do what you want them to do, waste of time. Go and write a book. It's more important and it'll last longer.
Wilbur Smith
#95. You want to write something as good as what you've read.
Jodi Picoult
#96. What's invaluable about actually going to the places you want to write about are the random accidental things that happen. Random, accidental detail is the best way to make a setting convincing. You can of course invent your own random details, and sometimes I will also mash up real incidents.
Zachary Lazar
#97. You can't focus on what you should or shouldn't write or who you should or shouldn't be like. Just write for yourself and eventually you'll get to that place you want to be.
Autumn Doughton
#98. There was a moment when I changed from an amateur to a professional. I assumed the burden of a profession, which is to write even when you don't want to, don't much like what you're writing, and aren't writing particularly well.
Agatha Christie
#99. I like when people are very passionate about what they want to write about. Even if it's silly, you can be very passionate about it.
Judd Apatow
#100. To write better you must develop your taste for truth. You have to pay more attention to what you really think, feel, see and want.
Jonathan Price
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