Top 100 Writing Down Quotes
#1. When I sit down in front of a Windows machine, I can't write; when I sit down in front of my Mac, I can write. So I only use Macs.
Michael Crichton
#2. We all gotta die, and we all gotta live with the things our dark sides do. People are afraid of their darkness, though. Spend their whole lives so scared of dyin' that they never get to live. Spend their whole lives pushin' down that darkness, until there ain't no light at all.
Suzanne Palmieri
#3. It is by sitting down to write every morning that he becomes a writer. Those who do not do this remain amateurs.
Gerald Brenan
#4. You should give it to Max, Liesel. See if you can leave it on the bedside table, like all the other things." Liesel watched him as if he'd gone insane. "How, though?" Lightly, he tapped her skull with his knuckles. "Memorize it. Then write it down for him.
Markus Zusak
#5. No matter how many people try, no matter how many fancy songwriters in Los Angeles try to break it down to a formula ... to an extent, there isn't a science to writing great songs, I suppose.
Lauren Mayberry
#6. I may have a general broad-based idea of what I want to write about when I sit down to write a book, but I don't have any idea of what it's going to say. I would call my experience of creativity 'inspired by God' to produce certain pieces of information that might be useful to others.
Neale Donald Walsch
#7. It's about you putting in the work, practicing every day, and hopefully one day you write the song the whole world wants to get down to. And one day you're going to be sitting next to Ellen DeGeneres talking about how you broke records and rocked the Super Bowl!
Bruno Mars
#8. Instead of noting down things I'm unlikely to forget, I will write a poem. Even if I have never written one before and even if I never do so again, I will at least know that I once had the courage to put my feelings into words.
Paulo Coelho
#9. Every time you do something that is important, write down what you expect will happen.
Peter Drucker
#10. The time comes in life when we have read enough. It's time to stop reading. It's time to lay down the books and write.
Albert Einstein
#11. Just Keep Writing! Who cares if it's a Saturday, or if you left your laptop at home, or if you're around people? Just write one word, one line, jot down one idea. No matter how little you write, it's movement in the right direction. Forward. Toward completion.
Tammy Ferebee
#12. I'm very rigid about my schedule. I sit down at 8 A.M., and the Internet blocker goes on. My standard time is 120 minutes. I'm a compulsive writer, so it reminds me to stop writing ... If I write more than that, I turn into an ogre for my kids.
Claire Cameron
#13. I have from the first felt sure that the writer, when he sits down to commence his novel, should do so, not because he has to tell a story, but because he has a story to tell. The novelist's first novel will generally have sprung from the right cause.
Anthony Trollope
#14. The openness of such networked devices reflects our growing desire to construct writing in a way that breaks down the traditional distinctions between the book and such larger forms as the encyclopedia and the library.
Jay David Bolter
#15. We writers don't really think about whether what we write is good or not. It's too much to worry about. We just put the words down, trying to get them right, operating by some inner sense of pitch and proportion, and from time to time, we stick the stuff in an envelope and ship it to an editor.
Garrison Keillor
#16. Letter writing is an excellent way of slowing down this lunatic helterskelter universe long enough to gather one's thoughts
Nick Bantock
#17. I think that the joy of writing a novel is the self-exploratio n that emerges and also that wonderful feeling of playing God with the characters. When I sit down at my writing desk, time seems to vanish ... I think the most important thing for a writer is to be locked in a study.
Erica Jong
#18. The story unfolded quickly as I typed, in a way I was becoming familiar with. There was something about putting the truth on paper, bringing facts into the light of day where everyone could look at them, that made my fingers move faster -- it was becoming one of my favorite sensations on earth.
Gwenda Bond
#19. I spend all my time trying to keep thoughts away and ignore them ... But here you are, trying to remember your own life, writing your thoughts down so that you don't forget. I suddenly realized what it would be like not to know, not to remember.
Michael Scott
#20. Use original detail in your writing. Life is so rich, if you can write down the real details of the way things were and are, you hardly need anything else.
Natalie Goldberg
#21. I see myself as a first-draft writer, so when I sit down to write something, the first draft is usually pretty close to the end draft. There will be some tweaks along the way, but it's not like I'll go 20 pages and throw it out and start again.
Noah Hawley
#22. It's a very excruciating life facing that blank piece of paper every day and having to reach up somewhere into the clouds and bring something down out of them.
Truman Capote
#23. I had always been more interested in playing and improvising than sitting down at a desk and writing out a piece. I'd always found it more fun to play, and the other a little bit tedious. I always had trouble with the decisions.
Terry Riley
#24. When people ask that question, it's very hard to nail down a formula or a circumstance that I always write in, but I definitely do believe that there have been moments, musically, when I have channeled something, you know?
Kimbra
#25. I read a lot of books. Here are the books I'm using for my 9/11 project. [Wright gestures to three six-foot-long shelves of books.] As I read them I highlight certain passages. Then I have an assistant write down each quote on an index card and note where it came from.
Lawrence Wright
#26. Everybody should write a book whether you get it published or not because the experience of sort of taking it all and throwing it down on paper is unbelievably cathartic.
Gary Dell'Abate
#27. I always enjoyed writing. I did playlets in high school, I did radio shows in college. That's one of the reasons I went down to Second City, because you could do acting and writing.
Dan Castellaneta
#28. I'm not a writer. I marvel at writing. I am sometimes absolutely astounded when I read something and I think how in the world did that man or that woman sit down at a typewriter, a computer or a pen and an ink well, and seemingly have nothing come between their heart and that pen.
Kevin Spacey
#29. I have the exact opposite problem of every writer I've ever met: Every writer I've ever met writes things that are too long, and they have to edit them down.
Fran Lebowitz
#30. Don't let society's defined genre hold you down, be a free spirit and just write, let society be the one to decide where each piece fits in.
Uma Nnenna
#31. It's good for you to write down your thoughts. It's
therapeutic because it forces you to slow down and think about
life.
Katie Kacvinsky
#32. I never really write the jokes. I just sit down over a week or two and try to figure out what I want to talk about. Once I narrow that down, then I start working on the material, like "How do I make this stuff funny?"
Chris Rock
#33. Don't bend; don't water it down; don't try to make it logical; don't edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly.
Franz Kafka
#34. Sometimes I start with lyrics - rarely - but sometimes I might have an idea for some lyrics that I wanna say. I write them down and figure out how to use that in a melody to write a song.
Leon Bridges
#35. And so I've written everything down, too afraid of my demons and what they may say, the doubt that eats at me from the inside. Too afraid that I'll forget and it'll all be a madwoman's dream.
Nadege Richards
#36. When I want to read something nice, I sit down and write it myself.
Mark Twain
#37. Recognize how truly blessed you are. Take time to count your blessings and write them down. To make your dreams come true you must already be soaking in the very presence you wish to create.
Brandon Bays
#38. I don't sit down with a goal of writing. I read books or magazines. I watch TV. I go to the doctor. I get on airplanes. I live a normal life and sometimes I'll notice something or read things or experience things.
Brian Regan
#39. The best reason for putting anything down on paper is that one may then change it.
Bernard DeVoto
#40. Well, I hear things," she began. "And ... well, writing things down? I suppose that's a suitable job for a lady, isn't it? It's practically cultural.
Terry Pratchett
#41. I've never been high. Writing is my drug of choice. You don't ever have to come down from that kind of high, I tell ya. And, best part is, it's free.
Christy Hall
#43. One exercise I always do when I'm getting to know a character is ask her to tell me her secrets. Sit down with a pen and paper, and start with, 'I never told anybody ... ' and go from there, writing in the voice of your character.
Jennifer McMahon
#44. Every time I try to write a song, when I sit down and think I'm going to write, I really want to write a song, and it never works out. It's always when it hits me unexpectedly on a plane or right before I go to bed, something like that.
Bruno Mars
#45. When people climb a mountain, they don't stay there. They come back down and tell everyone they climbed a mountain. Writing a book is like that. If you write a book, you should tell everyone.
Bob Howard
#46. And here you see me working out, as cheerfully and thankfully as I may, my doom of sharing in the glass a constant change of customers, and of lying down and rising up with the skeleton allotted to me for my mortal companion.
Charles Dickens
#47. If "Been there, done that" isn't your mantra,then make haste down your "bucket list.
Gina Greenlee
#48. Grub Street turns out good things almost as often as Parnassus. For if a writer is hard up enough, if he's far down enough (down where I have been and am rising from, I am really saying), he can't afford self-doubt and he can't let other people's opinions, even a father's, keep him from writing.
Wallace Stegner
#49. So much of writing isn't the fun parts like we get to discuss. It is sitting there putting the words down.
Hanya Yanagihara
#50. For those you work with or interact with regularly .. get a notebook and write down positive aspects of each of those people.
Rhonda Byrne
#51. Every night before you go to bed write down three things good that happened to you that day. That's pretty much all it takes to get a happiness boost over time.
Eric Barker
#52. -I haven't been writing for years. I lost faith. it's not for me. Too many levels.
-What levels?
-All those levels of existence. us down here, and up there, high above us. the ceiling of the universe. I've chosen nothingness.
Tadeusz Konwicki
#53. This is all you have to do. Sit down once a day to the novel and start working without internal criticism, without debilitating expectations, without the need to look at your words as if they were already printed and bound. The beginning is only a draft. Drafts are imperfect by definition.
Walter Mosley
#54. If you don't write it down, it never happened.
Cathy (& Jack) Ryan
Tom Clancy
#55. We write so many songs, it is difficult to narrow them down.
Miranda Lambert
#56. I hope that the feeling of making poetry is not confined to the people who write it down. There is no luxury like it, and I hope we all share it ... I am sure that the great glory of poetry in one's heart does not wait on achievement.
Stella Benson
#57. I try to write about small insignificant things. I try to find out if it's possible to say anything about them. And I almost always do if I sit down and write about something. There is something in that thing that I can write about. It's very much like a rehearsal. An exercise, in a way.
Karl Ove Knausgard
#58. Before you go to bed, write down three 'gratefuls' for the day and three 'did wells' (they can even include something as simple as doing the laundry)-the results can be amazing!
Carol Burnett
#59. Use your imagination. Trust me, your lives are not interesting. Don't write them down.
W.P. Kinsella
#60. I don't like to make a distinction between the writer and the painter , finally , because I do both things anyway . Everybody's dreaming and trying to put down their dreams in the way that their hand knows best . I feel as much a unity , as much comradeship , with painters as I do writers .
Clive Barker
#61. My dear Isa, I now sit down on my botom to answer all your kind and beloved letters which you was so good as to write to me.
Marjorie Fleming
#62. Todd and Tim [Tobias] write the music, and I come up with the melodies and lyrics. I call it the Ohio Rock Factory. Tim and Todd run the northern plant in Cleveland, and I've got the southern plant down here in Dayton. No tours permitted.
Robert Pollard
#63. During the first five years that I was writing the series, I made plans and wrote small pieces of all the books. I concentrate on one book at a time, though occasionally I will get an idea for a future book and scribble it down for future reference.
J.K. Rowling
#64. I am simply impressed by the unexpected insights which shower down on me when my job is to imagine, as contrasted with the woodenly familiar ideas which clutter my desk when my job is to tell the truth.
Kurt Vonnegut
#65. Historians desiring to write the actions of men, ought to set down the simple truth, and not say anything for love or hatred; also to choose such an opportunity for writing as it may be lawful to think what they will, and write what they think, which is a rare happiness of the time.
Walter Raleigh
#66. Ideas are the most fragile things in the world, and if you do not write them down, they will be lost forever.
Phil Cooke
#67. How did writing come to me? Like bird's down on my windowpane, in winter. Just then there rose in the heart a struggle of firebrands, which has, still now, not ended.
Rene Char
#68. The difference between screwing around and science is writing it down.
Adam Savage
#69. Bev Pettersen writes with flair and a down-to-earth warmth that will make you smile and sigh with contentment.
Julianne MacLean
#70. When I'm writing, I generally toy with an idea until it manifests itself - meaning a phrase or a tune comes into my head and eventually begins to jell. When something hits me, I write it down immediately. I don't wait, or it's gone.
Paul Anka
#71. I wanted to be a writer, so I became one. How? I wrote things down.
Ariel Gore
#72. I am not in control of how my characters live their lives, only in writing it down.
Kim Iverson
#73. Put a chair against the door, and turn the lights down low Write a letter to yourself, no one will ever know
Jann Arden
#74. If, while watching the sun set on a used-car lot in Los Angeles, you are struck by the parallels between this image and the inevitable fate of humanity, do not, under any circumstances, write it down.
Fran Lebowitz
#75. I've always loved books. I was an avid reader, with any number of my own stories rolling around in my head. Writing them down seemed a logical step.
Kat Martin
#76. The best tip for writing is just to write; to sit down and write, to begin doing it and not to be scared by the blank page.
David Almond
#77. I love when the characters take over and live their own lives. I get to watch and write it all down.
Anna Adams
#78. Stop beating yourself up over all the days you didn't work on your story. Focus on what you can do today.
Sit down, and write.
M. Kirin
#79. What man of us has never felt, walking through the twilight or writing down a date from his past, that he has lost something infinite?
Jorge Luis Borges
#80. I have nothing like a writing routine. I sometimes have trouble buckling down to write at home.
Rebecca Stead
#81. Write it down. Written goals have a way of transforming wishes into wants; cant's into cans; dreams into plans; and plans into reality. Don't just think it - ink it!
Michael Korda
#82. I think that perhaps if I had had to slow down the ideas so that I could capture them on paper I might have stifled some of them.
J.K. Rowling
#83. Sit down right now. Give me this moment. Write whatever's running through you. You might start with "this moment" and end up writing about the gardenia you wore at your wedding seven years ago. That's fine. Don't try to control it. Stay present with whatever comes up, and keep your hand moving.
Natalie Goldberg
#84. I started writing everything down.I wrote for the same reason someone lost sticks a message in a bottle.
I'm here. Help. Please find me.
Heather Sellers
#85. Agile methods derive much of their agility by relying on the tacit knowledge embodied in the team, rather than writing the knowleadge down in plans.
Barry Boehm
#86. We've defined decency down now that we look at the entertainment value of it, whether the acting is good, the writing is good, the story is good, no matter the depravity, we'll watch it.
Rush Limbaugh
#87. Language is political. That's why you and me, my Brother and Sister, that's why we supposed to choke our natural self into the weird, lying, barbarous, unreal, white speech and writing habits that the schools lay down like holy law.
June Jordan
#88. I was just sitting on my bed in a dormitory room, and I started writing. The thing that was magic about it was that once you put down one word, you could cross it out. I figured that out right away. I put down 'mountain,' and then I'd go, 'No - 'valley.' That's better.'
James Tate
#89. I picked up On The Road, Howl, and Naked Lunch (in that order) in high school. I was blown away. The writing was amazing and the places it took me was even more far out. It opened up new avenues of thinking for me and so I went down the beaten road.
Yony Leyser
#90. The natural way of ensuring that the past continues to live in the present and to inform the future is to write it down.
Ian Jack
#91. There is no substitute for practical experience, and if you want to write about people you ought to put down that comic book and go out and meet some of them rather than studying the way that Stan Lee or Chris Claremont depict people.
Alan Moore
#92. Paper is to write things down that we need to remember. Our brains are used to think.
Albert Einstein
#93. The last thing we discover in composing a work is what to put down first.
Blaise Pascal
#94. You get right down to it, writing is no means to self-help. It's scarcely a passing attempt at self-help.
Haruki Murakami
#95. The little things. Perhaps it is these trivialities I have been writing down in my book, these small hooks on which my whole life is hung.
S.J. Watson
#96. Coming up with ideas is the easiest thing on earth. Putting them down is the hardest.
Rod Serling
#97. Snooki is a bestselling author? Huh? What? I don't know if I should dumb down my book, shoot myself or find a publisher who'll settle for a rough draft written on a Pop-Tart and a coconut lotion handie..
Geoffrey Hill
#98. All family histories, personal histories,are as sketchy and unreliable as histories of the Phoenicians, it seems to me. We should note everything down, fill in the wide gaps if we can. Which is why I am writing this my darlings.
William Boyd
#99. I'm skeptical of passive learning. If you don't write down what you're hearing and learning, what the odds you remember it?
Ben Casnocha
#100. Sometimes I write a song and I'm down with it but I'm like yeah, whatever, and then everybody loves it and then it blows up. I'm like: "Okay! I didn't see that coming."
Bonnie McKee
Famous Authors
Popular Topics
Scroll to Top
