Writing For Money Quotes

#1. Some say writing is its own reward. I write for money, but writing for money is not so bad, especially when that writing brings you joy.

Eloisa James

#2. What I wanted to do was to earn enough money to pay for my mother's house. When my mother passed away, I wanted to buy it from the rest of my family and keep the house in the family. That was the only reason I even attempted writing for money.

Dorothea Benton Frank

#3. I should think it extremely improbable that anyone ever wrote for money. Naturally, when he has written something, he wants to get as much for it as he can, but that is a very different thing from writing for money.

P.G. Wodehouse

#4. It troubles me that people speak about writing for money as ugly and distasteful.

Joyce Maynard

#5. It took many years to accept that fantasy is the fuel for my storytelling passion, and without that, I really am a hack, writing for money or approval rather than for the pure delight of storytelling.

Kelley Armstrong

#6. Despite all the cynical things writers have said about writing for money, the truth is we write for love. That is why it is so easy to exploit us.

Erica Jong

#7. Never use the word 'audience.' The very idea of a public, unless the poet is writing for money, seems wrong to me. Poets don't have an 'audience': They're talking to a single person all the time.

Robert Graves

#8. Payment and reserved copyright are at bottom the ruin of literature. Only he who writes entirely for the sake of what he has to say writes anything worth writing. It is as if there were a curse on money: every writer writes badly as soon as he starts writing for gain.

Arthur Schopenhauer

#9. I didn't make any money from my writing until much later. I published about 80 stories for nothing. I spent on literature.

Naguib Mahfouz

#10. I like writing, but I write for self-improvement more than I do for money.

Thomas Steinbeck

#11. I have no credentials. I have no money. I literally come from a poor place. I was a servant. I dropped out of college. The next thing you know I'm writing for the 'New Yorker,' I have this sort of life, and it must seem annoying to people.

Jamaica Kincaid

#12. I cant justify taking money away from hungry kids and needy schools to pay for the Games when corporations are willing to write the checks.

Mary Lou Retton

#13. Art was a way for me to express myself and for me to also escape because it was tough growing up as a child. We didn't have a lot of money. I was always creating. I was writing stories. I was doing comic books. I made my own universe.

Michelle Phan

#14. Don't write for money. Write because you love to do something. If you write for money, you won't write anything worth reading.

Ray Bradbury

#15. If money can't be made reporting and writing articles, then professionals simply can't do it anymore. Unless we adopt the position that the amateur blogosphere is really capable of taking on the role that the 'New York Times' and CNN play, then we do need solutions for paying for content.

Douglas Rushkoff

#16. I don't believe that art and politics or social issues must be separated. In writing about marriage, for example, money can be a big factor, and money is linked to earning, and earning is influenced by politics.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

#17. A writer's life is so hazardous that anything he does is bad for him. Anything that happens to him is bad: failure's bad, success is bad; impoverishment is bad, money is very, very bad. Nothing good can happen ... Except the act of writing.

E.L. Doctorow

#18. Fiction that isn't an author's personal adventure into the frightening or the unknown isn't worth writing for anything but money.

Jonathan Franzen

#19. Write for the love of your art. Someplace down the road, the money, the fame, they'll come, but by that time you won't be thinking in terms of money or fame.

James Lee Burke

#20. For me, writing isn't about money and fame. It's about passion, an art form that I want to share with the world, expand the horizons to new worlds, new experiences, and new adventures.

Jason W. Blair

#21. Fame, money and the size of the market are not very important to me. What is, is writing a book that is worth doing and then publishing it. I don't write books for entertainment, for people to pass the time then throw away.

Aidan Chambers

#22. I'm looking for backing for an unauthorized auto-biography that I am writing. Hopefully, this will sell in such huge numbers that I will be able to sue myself for an extraordinary amount of money and finance the film version in which I play everybody.

David Bowie

#23. and a day spent working for money is wasted while a day spent writing poetry is wasted but more honest.

Tim Lane

#24. You want to write a book for so many reasons ... The main reason ... is because it will make you well-known and beloved and popular and successful and famous and respected. You also write ... to make money, but that motivation is not first on the list.

Helen Gurley Brown

#25. I spent three days a week for 10 years educating myself in the public library, and it's better than college. People should educate themselves
you can get a complete education for no money. At the end of 10 years, I had read every book in the library and I'd written a thousand stories.

Ray Bradbury

#26. Write for pleasure and publish for money.

Alexander Pushkin

#27. All I had was the will and the love for music. I couldn't read music or write it. No connections, no car, no money, no bankroll, no clothes, no nothing.

Barry White

#28. When you are writing a song for something else, if you are doing something for money, I always think that's bad luck.

Chad Kroeger

#29. There is no money in the world that would compensate me for writing a lousy book.

David Lagercrantz

#30. I'm still struggling with the fact that due to my own (selfish) desire to be a writer, my children probably won't have the same opportunities I had growning up. For most students, however, I genuinely think it's about the money. It's a factor, sure. But it just feels like a factor.

Marina Keegan

#31. Writing is like sex. First you do it for love, then you do it for your friends, and then you do it for money.

Virginia Woolf

#32. You can't write any form of fiction unless you enjoy reading it. You must be sincere in your approach. It's no good despising the form. So many people think they could earn some money from writing something for which they have no affection. It won't work. The first thing you have to have is belief.

Charlotte Bingham

#33. Writing on assignment, with lots of money handed to you before you even began, got very scary for me. My dread of not being perfect, something I got from a childhood surrounded by powerful, successful people, began to infect everything I wrote.

Stewart Stern

#34. When I started earning money from screen-writing, for a long time my only indulgences were books.

John Logan

#35. It is a transition, from modelling to singing, but for me it's a natural progression. The modelling was something I did to travel the world and make some money and end up doing what I want to do. It was a way for me to go gather the experience to write an album and now sing about it.

Erica Packer

#36. Writing fiction for money is a mug's game.

Stephen King

#37. That has to remain the principal reason for doing it, doesn't it? I know it's possible to write for money, and many very good writers have done so. But for me, it has to remain the principal thing that I actually want to do the writing.

Jonathan Kellerman

#38. It's a privilege to be able to have an idea and go into a group of executives and say, "I really want to write about this, and I really am interested in this," and for them to say, "Yes," and give you the money to make it.

Ryan T. Murphy

#39. Of course I want to be a best seller because I'm in the business and I want to be read, but there is no money in the world that can compensate for writing badly.

David Lagercrantz

#40. Write for impact first, money second. If you do it the other way around, you'll end up with less of either.

Don Roff

#41. There's no reason not to be in television now. You get to live at home and you're not on the road all the time, they pay you decent money, and the writing's good. You're not compromising for it, you know.

Colm Meaney

#42. In Canada, I've had success raising money. I think I was fortunate enough. But today, I would have to write a very, very bad script not to be financed for the next one. I'm assured at least of the next one, but you're always [only] as good as your last film. I think it's true for anyone.

Philippe Falardeau

#43. I've always been interested in both writing and music. When I first started getting published, I also worked as rehearsal pianist for the Boston Ballet, touring with them all over the U.S.A. and Europe - I wasn't making enough money from writing to support myself.

William Sleator

#44. I've finally decided to write about profit for a change
But before I really started I already started to feel lame
Baby what's it to a beast who manely to money remains untamed

Criss Jami

#45. Writing is a little bit like prostitution. First you do it for love. Then you do it for a few friends. Then you do it for money.

Moliere

#46. I do not think commodities are taken for granted. One of the convergences in time I noticed, and to me seemed very important, was the emergence of paper money. There had been permissionary notes, exchanging money by writing it, but there was no duplicated form of guaranteeing an exchange.

Marina Warner

#47. As I said, I had no publisher for What a Carve Up! while I was writing it, so all we had to live off was my wife's money and little bits I was picking up for journalism.

Jonathan Coe

#48. To make a deliberate falsification for personal gain is the last, worst depth to which either scholar or artist can descend in work or life.
(Letter to Muriel St. Clare Byrne, 8 September 1935)

Dorothy L. Sayers

#49. If someone decides to be a musician now, it means because there is no hope of money at the end of it, it means they really want to be a musician. And if someone is writing now, there is no hope for money at the end of it.

Douglas Coupland

#50. He sagged to his knees. He ached all over. It wasn't just that his brain was writing cheques that his body couldn't cash. It had gone beyond that. Now his feet were borrowing money that his legs hadn't got, and his back muscles were looking for loose change under the sofa cushions.

Terry Pratchett

#51. One paradox of professional writing is that books written solely for money and/or acclaim will almost never be good enough to garner either.

David Foster Wallace

#52. Finishing a book has massive implications for the writer, an empty head and an empty bank account springs to mind.

Ken Scott

#53. I write the script; nobody sees it, not the people that put the money in the picture. I cast who I want, and make the film. That's why I've always felt the only thing standing between me and greatness, is me. There's no excuse for me not to be great except that I'm not.

Woody Allen

#54. [The Center for Industrial Progress'] model allows us to keep conflicts of interest to an absolute minimum as we do our research and writing. As for our relationship with the fossil fuel industry, it's the same as everyone else - they pay for our ideas, we never accept money to voice theirs.

Alex Epstein

#55. Writing is like prostitution. First you do it for love, and then for a few close friends, and then for money.

Moliere

#56. It's better to be remembered for what you said, not what you earned.

Carla H. Krueger

#57. Even at my biggest, I want to be writing for other artists. Even at my peak - the highest I can be as an artist - I always want to be keeping my creative juices flowing, keeping money in the bank, putting my intellectual property out there.

Keri Hilson

#58. We publish only to satisfy out craving for fame; there's no other motive except the even baser one of making money ...

Thomas Bernhard

#59. As soon as I accepted that I am this kind of writer and I happen to live here, and stopped going to meetings and stopped beating myself up because I wasn't making a ton of money writing for some stupid sitcom, I felt really at home.

Meghan Daum

#60. For a living I write stuff that I know is gonna sell to a studio and make a lot of money at the multiplex.

Robert Ben Garant

#61. My job is writing. I get paid to do it. When was the last time you heard someone challenge a doctor for making money off of cancer?

Joyce Maynard

#62. In the same way that a woman becomes a prostitute. First I did it to please myself, then I did it to please my friends, and finally I did it for money.

Ferenc Molnar

#63. Well, I've never met an indexer any more than I've met a real writer. I'm impressed." Miss Finch's tone had changed, and she was suddenly leaning toward me, almost half over the counter. "Tell me, do you make any real money at this job, writing indexes for books?

Larry D. Sweazy

#64. What's the use of writing poetry for your peers? I don't think I should sell my poetry to other poets. If that's who my audience is, I'm dead, I'm not going to make any money.

Harley King

#65. If you have no money, men won't care for you, women won't love you; won't, that is, care for you or love you the last little bit that matters.

George Orwell

#66. I just rearrange words into a pleasing order for money.

Terry Pratchett

#67. I will get a loan and pay the money the court asks for. But I will not lay down my writing and I still say this was an important book to write.

Asne Seierstad

#68. I would rather spend money on something, that fulfills me for eternity. Rather, than something that fulfills me for only an hour or two.

Mary Sage Nguyen

#69. An author ought to consider himself, not as a gentleman who gives a private or eleemosynary treat, but rather as one who keeps a public ordinary, at which all persons are welcome for their money.

Henry Fielding

#70. She shakes him; that is what she presumable does to other readers too. That is, presumably why, in the larger picture, she exists. What a strange reward for a lifetime of shaking people: to be conveyed to this town in Pennsylvania and given money!

J.M. Coetzee

#71. I don't want the world to give me anything for my books except money enough to save me from the temptation to write only for money.

George Eliot

#72. If your writing is good, if it resonates, if it connects the dots for anybody out there, the lovers will come, the haters will come, support will come - sometimes in the form of money, sometimes in the form of something less expected - and it balances.

Amanda Palmer

#73. Most writers need to write. I write for money, really. If I won the lottery, I would never write another word. I would rather read.

Clarissa Dickson Wright

#74. On his office wall he had a note to himself: 'Money is necessary
but it isn't too important.' Money meant for him to keep on writing and to go his own way.

Walter Farley

#75. Anybody who can write home for money can write for magazines.

Wilson Mizner

#76. Poets and writers don't live either for money or for fame. And even without any recognition for their work they keep on writing!

Avijeet Das

#77. One ought not to write for money, but I consider it a first duty after one has written to exact the highest possible price. It is not a matter which concerns only the writer, but all writers.

Mary Abigail Dodge

#78. I would assume that there is a greater amount of joy for you in being able to write and help produce your own stuff and make a decent living, but not get rich versus always doing the other stuff that you don't write, and make more money.

Julie Delpy

#79. We only pay for what we admire, want and recognize as necessary, even when a cup of coffee is priced at the same value of a book that can change our entire future.

Robin Sacredfire

#80. This is a faithless old world. Men and women are hardheaded, pleasure-mad, money crazy. They write up their successes and say, "The power and might of my hand have done these things." God has been ruled out; consequently, the thrill and romance of true living are gone for most people.

Lee Roberson

#81. People say that writers write for money. From my own experience that's not true. I write for me. I publish for money.

Greg Curtis

#82. Perhaps writing a story or a novel was not something that should be done for money, or to win praise, but for the sheer sensual pleasure of it. I liked that idea. It made me want to write lots of stories, to give myself that pleasure.

Vanessa Wu

#83. When I graduated college I needed to make money while I was pursuing acting, so I read screenplays and made a living writing coverage on them for studios.

Sasha Alexander

#84. I spend a lot of time in my bed. It's a good comfy one with a tartan bedspread. It's the only place I can read without straining my neck, and I take an afternoon nap, which is my reward for making enough money from my writing now not to have to work. I never get up in the morning before 11.30.

Martin Millar

#85. Yet for quixotic reasons
namely, that I enjoyed writing obits
I had decided to scale back on articles about city life in order to write exclusively about the city's dead. For even less money. It was a strange and inexplicable career move.

Avi Steinberg

#86. I wrote small stories here and there, then bigger ones. Some were even written for money. I signed up for a writing class and snuck my first assignment on a yellow legal pad in a partner's office while he read through my memo.

Rachel Sklar

#87. It is well to write love letters. There are certain things for which it is not easy to ask your mistress face to face, like money for instance.

Henri De Regnier

#88. Writing for a penny a word is ridiculous. If a man wants to make a million dollars, the the best way would be to start his own religion.

L. Ron Hubbard

#89. Being a professional writer is a lot like being a hooker. You'd better find out if you're any good at it before you start charging for it.

Sharyn McCrumb

#90. One of your first jobs, as you write for money, will be to get rid of your vocabulary.

Jack Woodford

#91. No, I'm not one (of those) people who votes for something then writes to the government to ask them to send us money. I did not request any stimulus money.

Paul Ryan

#92. I always start a book for money. If you're married five times you have to.

Norman Mailer

#93. I'm not in it for the money. I like music. I love to write music. I can't imagine myself not playing or singing or writing. It would just drive me crazy if I didn't.

Paul Simon

#94. If you try to please audiences, uncritically accepting their tastes, it can only mean that you have no respect for them: that you simply want to collect their money.

Andrei Tarkovsky

#95. True authors don't write for fame or to make a name or money, they write to make impact

Bernard Kelvin Clive

#96. You will do well not to write for money, not because you won't get rich doing it, but because writing fueled by that sort of motivation becomes dull and lifeless and mediocre.

Joyce Rachelle

#97. I've determined the ideal job for me is one where I can write clever essays about my life and my employer will give me enough money not only to live a comfortable existence, but also to buy many, many new pairs of shoes.

Jen Lancaster

#98. I haven't modelled since I was 12 - that was a one-time thing, and I did it as a kid to make a little money to save up for university. Acting is my first love as well as writing and eventually producing and directing.

Kyle Schmid

#99. I'd say that about 82 percent of what I write is bad, but don't go by me; I'm as bad a judge as I am a writer. Look, if it were all good, you'd be paying twice as much for this book. So relax, read it, and if you don't enjoy it, remember that you're saving money.

George Burns

#100. You never get tired of making money, and you never get tired of a great acting gig, a same role that you can play for years, with wonderful writing and wonderful actors.

Peter Jacobson