Top 100 Writing Motivation Quotes
#1. 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
#2. If you look at the world one way, it takes from you - it's a thief of time, energy, creative mojo. But if you look at the world another way, it gives you an endless supply of motivation.
Julianna Baggott
#3. He has discovered the truths that keep writers chained to their desks: the primacy of the inner life and the sheer exhilaration of creating a world from scratch.
Barbara Klein Moss
#4. A young pianist & composer who has demonstrated an exceptional creativity, in both his playing & his writing, as well as showing us all, his very strong commitment & motivation to aim for high musical goals. Talent like his is rare.
Steve Lacy
#5. Being passionate about something is the most beautiful characteristic you can develop.
Charlotte Eriksson
#6. Most people do a good deal of whatever they do motivated by love. For me, few stories are truly complete without it.
Sara Sheridan
#8. When you write a manuscript, it feels like being in a relationship with someone. You'll hate it, get bored with it, be pissed of, like you just want to break up. But, just like any relationship, you will fall in love again and again, like you don't want to lose it.
Alvi Syahrin
#10. To write is to release the soul. So write. What right have we to leave a thing of such beauty bottled within ourselves?
Brian A. McBride
#11. 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
#12. I knew my motivations for going to each place and what I was looking for. If I don't do that then I generally don't write about my travels.
Jessa Crispin
#13. If I only had one reader in my entire life, that reader would be all that I needed to continue writing.
Joseph Eastwood
#14. I was learning the craft; I didn't study writing in school. Rejection was my motivation, and failure is what taught me.
Pierce Brown
#15. There is no such thing as lack of time, only unclear priorities and lack of motivation. It is better to abandon a project than to work on it half-heartedly for a protracted period of time.
Gudjon Bergmann
#18. Writing a journal article combines all the elements that deter motivation: The probability of success is low; the likelihood of criticism and rejection is high; and the outcome, even if successful, isn't always rewarding.
Paul J. Silvia
#21. Believe in yourself and start achieving your dream. It waits for you on the other side of the publish button.
Dan Alatorre
#22. I write well on the road. I have the energy, I have the motivation to write. I'm happy when I'm on the road.
Pam Houston
#23. I spend several years trying to get inside the brain and heart of my subjects, listening to the interior monologues in their letters, and when I have to bridge the chasms between the factual evidence, I try to make an intuitive leap through the eyes and motivation of the person I'm writing about.
Irving Stone
#26. To be motivated to write a novel, I need to be unable not to write.
Johnny Rich
#29. Time spent doing whatever it is you do to escape your daily life would be better spent acquiring a life that needs no escape.
Shaun Hick
#30. We know nothing about motivation. All we can do is write books about it.
Peter Drucker
#31. To be taken seriously about doing something creative and probably travel a lot. That was my motivation. I knew I was good, I knew I could write. I also knew you could get laid really easily.
David Bowie
#32. What's crucial is whether your writing attains the standards you've set for yourself. ( ... ) Basically a writer has a quiet, inner motivation, and doesn't seek validation in the outwardly visible.
Haruki Murakami
#33. The sooner you finish procrastinating, the sooner you can get back to your art.
Stephanie Lennox
#34. I wonder sometimes if the motivation for writers ought to be contempt, not admiration.
Orson Scott Card
#35. Part of my motivation for writing mysteries for young people is that I loved mysteries when I was growing up, and now that I'm on the creative end of things, I'm discovering that they're even more fun to write!
Wendelin Van Draanen
#38. Action, reaction, motivation, emotion, all have to come from the characters. Writing a love scene requires the same elements from the writer as any other.
Nora Roberts
#39. It's what the Pixies always said about music - they were writing songs and just trying not to be boring. That was their main motivation and it worked for them. I remember reading that and thinking that was the way to do it.
Jonny Greenwood
#40. Writers and learners will write better and learn more if they understand the "why" of what they are studying.
William Zinsser
#42. The characters act for reasons that they can't control and, as readers, we have to believe in their motivations, their sense of choice and in the reality of their suffering, even though, deep down, we know it's all just puppetry on the part of the writer.
Johnny Rich
#44. Some writers, notably Anton Chekov, argue that all characters must be admirable, because once we've looked at anyone deeply enough and understood their motivation we must identify with them rather than judge them.
Scarlett Thomas
#45. If you don't write when you don't have time for it, you won't write when you do have time for it.
Katerina Stoykova Klemer
#46. Writer's block results from too much head. Cut off your head. Pegasus, poetry, was born of Medusa when her head was cut off. You have to be reckless when writing. Be as crazy as your conscience allows.
Joseph Campbell
#47. Writing keeps death at bay. Every book I write is a triumph over death ... If we did not know we'd die, we'd wander around and sleep like cats.
Ray Bradbury
#50. We all hate moral ambiguity in some sense, and yet it is also absolutely necessary. In writing a story, it is the place where I begin.
Amy Tan
#53. If someone asked for my recipe for happiness, step one would be finding out what you love most in the world and step two would be finding someone to pay you to do it. I consider myself very lucky indeed to be able to support myself by writing.
J.K. Rowling
#56. It is not lack of ability, but lack of motivation, lack of focus, and lack of self-confidence that prevents most aspiring authors from finishing what they started.
Gudjon Bergmann
#58. My primary motivation for writing is to communicate my perceptions and insights into the human condition, in a way that may provide understanding, comfort, and company to others.
Vanna Bonta
#60. If getting on the radio was a major motivation, I'd be one of the worst writers of all time. I admire people who do it, and I think it's a nice way to work, but I try to do the best I can and write what I like. I don't worry about it.
Randy Newman
#63. I'll
vacuum up my stale hair, I'll
pay all my neighbors' bad debts, I'll
write a poem called Yellow and put
my lips down to drink it up ...
Anne Sexton
#67. Be thankful for the people who have stood by you and cheered you on, but don't forget to be thankful for the ones that said it could not be done. Writing a book is no small task and even the skeptics can help you get where you want to be!
C.K. Webb
#69. You have to pay for this view (onto which he looks while writing), so our expenses keep us pretty motivated to write. It's a vicious cycle.
Pat Conroy
#70. You have to write. You have to sit down and do it every day. Find your method, your motivation, your tenacity to keep doing it even when you can no longer explain why you would even try.
Catherine Cruzan
#74. Write something worth reading and your voice will be heard.
Teresa Mummert
#75. In writing, as in life, its not the big words that are the problem its the little minds that read them.
Rassool Jibraeel Snyman
#76. I began writing late; my first articles and stories were published after I was thirty, and I was motivated by money. Money is not a bad motivation. The need to eat keeps us from laziness, and the fact that someone is willing to pay to read what we write assures us that we have indeed written.
M.V. Carey
#77. In fact, "talent" is as common as mud; what's rare is the motivation to sit down and actually do something with one's talent, the discipline to do it regularly, and the persistence to stick with it until it's finished.
Patricia C. Wrede
#79. When I have fully executed this phase of my life, then I can begin a new chapter.
Lailah Gifty Akita
#80. The simple act of writing down a goal and making a written plan for its accomplishment moves you to the top 3 percent.
Brian Tracy
#81. What you think and how you think, influences what you ink and how you ink.
Ifeanyi Enoch Onuoha
#82. The professional loves her work. She is invested in it wholeheartedly. But she does not forget that the work is not her.
Steven Pressfield
#83. 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
#84. The best and only thing that one artist can do for another is to serve as an example and an inspiration.
Steven Pressfield
#86. Everyone chatters about their imaginary friends. Some are ascribing agency, motivation, and intelligence to patterns of societal forces that are the emergent properties of distributed interactions. Others are writing - or filming - fiction.
Manu Saadia
#87. Be warned, reader. Once seen, something cannot be unseen and once read, something cannot be unread. What lies ahead can be the future of spirit but the future of spirit can also be what lies inside your head.
S.A. Tawks
#89. Henry Luce to his Time magazine writers: Tell the history of our time through the people who make it.
Walter Isaacson
#90. Writing is grunt work - you need to have self-motivation, perseverance, and faith ... talent is the smallest part of it.
Jodi Picoult
#91. Without visions and written goals, what direction are we going to head?
Lailah Gifty Akita
#92. A hammer made of deadlines is the surest tool for crushing writer's block.
Ryan Lilly
#93. When you've worked hard and done well and walked through that doorway of opportunity, you do not slam it shut behind you.
Guy Kawasaki
#94. You can't stumble into an adventure. An artist must dance, not walk, in order to inspire their audience. This patient audience who has witnessed all that you've ever performed. So don't be shy. Just dance. Set this scene into motion.
F.K. Preston
#95. The word 'NO' is the best motivation there is for the storyteller in you.
A.K. Kuykendall
#97. The day when on the cover of my books, my name will appear in bigger fond than the title of my book- I will stop writing because that would be the death of the writer in me.
Kirtida Gautam
#98. Do you wait for things to happen, or do you make them happen yourself? I believe in writing your own story.
Charlotte Eriksson
#99. have written my first grateful thanks for a fresh new day in a new year.
Lailah Gifty Akita
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