Writing Quotes of the Day

“If you can tell stories, create characters, devise incidents, and have sincerity and passion, it doesn't matter a damn how you write.”—William Somerset Maugham

“I shall live badly if I do not write, and I shall write badly if I do not live.”—Francoise Sagan

“Risk! Risk anything! Care no more for the opinion of others, for those voices. Do the hardest thing on earth for you. Act for yourself. Face the truth.”—Katherine Mansfield

“If you would write emotionally, be first unemotional. If you would move your readers to tears, do not let them see you cry.”—James J. Kilpatrick

“Writing is communication, not self-expression. Nobody in this world wants to read your diary except your mother.”—Richard Peck

“The road to ignorance is paved with good editors.”—George Bernard Shaw

“The misuse of language induces evil in the soul.”—Socrates

“Short stories can be rather stark and bare unless you put in the right details. Details make stories human, and the more human a story can be, the better.”—V. S. Pritchett

“A writer is a person who cares what words mean, what they say, how they say it. Writers know words are their way towards truth and freedom, and so they use them with care, with thought, with fear, with delight.” —Ursula K. LeGuin

“I’ve put in so many enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant, and that’s the only way of insuring one’s immortality.”—James Joyce