Writing Lesson Quotes

#1. Mort moved my ending to the beginning, took out all the adjectives, cut the whole thing in half, and made it one hundred percent better.
'That's how it's done,' he said. Best writing lesson I ever had.

Anita Diamant

#2. You should spend more time reading the Good Book and less reading all those novels. What are you going to tell the Lord on Judgement Day when He asks you why you didn't read your bible? Hmm?
I will tell Him that His press agents could have done with a writing lesson or two, I said. To myself.

Jennifer Donnelly

#3. I think every professor and writer is in some way an exhibitionist because his or her normal activity is a theatrical one. When you give a lesson the situation is the same as writing a book. You have to capture the attention, the complicity of your audience.

Umberto Eco

#4. Maybe the hardest lesson is the one I have to learn over and over again, that each story is its own animal, that every story I write is going to come only with difficulty.

Bonnie Jo Campbell

#5. I guess the lesson is you can't go everywhere. You should still go everywhere you can.

Charles Finch

#6. The most important lesson in the writing trade is that any manuscript is improved if you cut away the fat.

Robert A. Heinlein

#7. Here is a lesson to brand in fire across any young historian's mind: If you try to do too much, you will not do anything.

Richard Marius

#8. I have learned to write about things that are personal without objectifying anybody or anything, and that's been an important lesson for me. It's useful not to dump on people while simultaneously expressing a truth or a feeling if it's necessary, without diluting the intensity of the lyric.

Martha Wainwright

#9. When it comes to writers, I'm a huge fan of Ian McEwan. I've never taken a writing course, but reading and deconstructing his novels has been as good a lesson as any.

Deborah Copaken Kogan

#10. Writing a poem is a lesson in the truest empathy. And to truly have empathy is to truly know power, or at least the only kind of power I'm interested in.

Zachary Schomburg

#11. My family is number one in my life. I'll blow off writing or just about anything to make sure I take my son to preschool or watch him at his swimming lesson.

Henry Cho

#12. The principal lesson of Emacs is that a language for extensions should not be a mere "extension language". It should be a real programming language, designed for writing and maintaining substantial programs. Because people will want to do that!

Richard Stallman

#13. My first teacher was Steven Spielberg. I worked on Amazing Stories. That was my first job, as a writer and as a story editor. Watching him and his command of the tools of filmmaking, and his admiration for writing and the story itself, was the greatest lesson I ever had.

Mick Garris

#14. You are not eternal. Leave an eternal mark.

McNonwuun

#15. The only lesson is, you gotta keep at it.

R.L. Stine

#16. I think my books are lighter and funnier than some of the big series out there. You may not walk away from my books having learned a life-altering lesson, but you will feel better for having laughed for a few hours. It's just a different style of writing.

Molly Harper

#17. Newt spun, making her robe unfurl. "He's my familiar, bought and paid for. I can claim anything of his. Even his life." Al cleared his throat nervously. "That's good to know," he said lightly. "Important safety tip. Rachel, write that down somewhere as lesson number one.

Kim Harrison

#18. Try writing an entire story with only a thousand words at your disposal. It's a terrific lesson in economy and precession.

Darynda Jones

#19. I fear we have become a society more interested in writing the quote of another, than living the lesson, and creating a quote of our own.

Thurman P. Banks Jr.

#20. The final lesson a writer learns is that everything can nourish the writer. The dictionary, a new word, a voyage, an encounter, a talk on the street, a book, a phrase learned.

Anais Nin

#21. I have learned one lesson as a writer ... keep writing and never throw any notes away. Written parts that can't be used today ... may be used for other books tomorrow.

Timothy Pina

#22. If I ever teach writing again, I'd say the first lesson is to listen.

Horton Foote

#23. The most important lesson my parents taught me is that writing is a job, one that requires discipline and commitment. Most of the time it's a fun job, a wonderful job, but sometimes it isn't, and those are the days that test you.

Jesse Kellerman

#24. People don't remember lessons. They remember stories.

Kamand Kojouri

#25. Lesson learned: If you're already resorting to writing shitty poetry (not the lovey-dovey kind) to get your guys attention within one month of meeting him, he is not the one.

Kate Madison

#26. LEARN FROM THE MASTERS:
Mark Twain once said, "Show, don't tell." This is an incredibly important lesson for writers to remember; never get such a giant head that you feel entitled to throw around obscure phrases like "Show, don't tell." Thanks for nothing, Mr. Cryptic.

Colin Nissan

#27. I actually think there are more Republicans than people realize who would be sympathetic to immigration reform in the rank and file. I think the lesson for Jeb Bush is politicians shouldn't write books with long lead times.

E. J. Dionne

#28. My first true lesson in writing came from Mr. Bowden when I was 16. At my high school, he was the teacher known to be the very best at literature and writing.

Jeff Lindsay

#29. Without living, how can you know? Without knowing, how can you speak?

J.E. Seanachai

#30. Through therapy and a lot of thinking and writing my memoirs, I've been able to use my life as a lesson.

Jane Fonda

#31. Is this not the reason I write, to leave a piece of me behind?

Aisha Mirza

#32. My biggest lesson ... was to try and create narrators that were believable ... so the listener becomes really invested in the story or the song.

Kristian Bush

#33. Here's the first major lesson: Writing is not an activity. It's not something you sit down at the keyboard, and just start doing. That's called 'typing.' Typing is an activity ... Writing is a process. And if you start thinking of it as a process, life gets so much easier.

Jeff Bollow

#34. What I had to face, the very bitter lesson that everyone who wants to write has got to learn, was that a thing may in itself be the finest piece of writing one has ever done, and yet have absolutely no place in the manuscript one hopes to publish.

Thomas Wolfe

#35. I do not turn to history to draw from it an easy lesson of hope, but to confront my experience with that of others, to acquire something I might call universal compassion, and also a sense of responsibility, responsibility for the state of my conscience.

Zbigniew Herbert

#36. The best and easiest lesson for me was to learn that writing is mostly hard work.

Bonnie Jo Campbell

#37. I had a professor in college who returned our graded essays, walked up to the chalkboard, and wrote in huge letters: "SO WHAT?" She threw the piece of chalk down and said, "Ask yourself that every time you turn in a piece of writing." It's a lesson I never forgot.

Austin Kleon