16 Quotes That Capture the Essence of Writing
These quotes offer encouragement and inspiration to anyone who has considered writing their first blog post, anyone who has resolved to publish their first book, and even seasoned authors who are battling the internal forces of fear and self-doubt.
1. “Writing is an act of discovering what you think and what you believe.” -Dan Pink
Before I started writing, I assumed that authors knew what they wanted to say before they began typing. That assumption evaporated in my first month of writing.
I realized that grabbing my pen or computer to begin writing was like picking up a magic wand. My wand could make words appear that formerly didn’t exist in my brain. By sitting down to write, I learned what I thought about the topic at hand. Writing crystallizes thought.
2. “A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.” -Thomas Mann
At first blush, this quote sounds ridiculous. Aren’t writers supposed to be better and faster at writing than anyone else? Shouldn’t writing come easiest to those who choose it as their career and passion?
Not exactly.
Writers are unique beings. We don’t consider it a waste of time to spend ten minutes hunting for the perfect word to convey a difficult concept.
Writing is as much about grit as it is about creativity. Often, writing is not an act of genius, but an act of will.
3. “The scariest moment is always just before you start.” -Stephen King
I still HATE starting new stories. I wrote the headline for this article a month ago and finally sat down tonight to write it.
I still worry that I won’t be able to express myself the way I want.
I still worry that no one will want to read what I’ve written.
I still worry that the concepts I find remarkable could ring hollow to others.
But once I’ve begun to write, those concerns evaporate. I get excited. I realize how much I enjoy the writing process.
The act of writing is what’s important. And once we begin, we tap into the power and creative force that have been waiting for us all along.
4. “I write only when inspiration strikes. Fortunately it strikes every morning at nine o’clock sharp.” -W. Somerset Maugham
Maugham shatters the illusion that writers are geniuses blessed by the Muse. Authors view writing the same way other workers view their own professions: nothing comes without putting in the work.
Writing is as much about grit as it is about creativity. Often, writing is not an act of genius, but an act of will.
We cannot wait for inspiration. We must put in the work. We must write.
5. “In short, you may actually be writing only two or three hours a day, but your mind, in one way or another, is working on it twenty-four hours a day — yes, while you sleep — but only if some sort of draft or earlier version exists. Until it exists, writing has not really begun.” -John McPhee
Once I’ve begun a draft of a story, my mental frequency is tuned in to the channel of that piece. I begin to notice ideas for that story around me in my daily life because I now know what to look for.
There is immense magic in picking up the pen, putting the gears into motion.
Once we begin, we tap into the power and creative force that have been waiting for us all along.
6. “Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” -E. L. Doctorow
I often hesitate to begin writing a story if I cannot visualize the conclusion. I want to know where I’m going before I jump into my creativity car.
But creativity cars run on uncertainty — not certainty. Creativity is fueled by the unknown. As I’ve come to realize this, I have challenged myself to begin writing stories even when I don’t have the end in sight. Leaning into that uncertainty has made me a better writer.
7. “If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it. Or, if proper usage gets in the way, it may have to go. I can’t allow what we learned in English composition to disrupt the sound and rhythm of the narrative.” -Elmore Leonard
The best writing is conversational. It rings true to the reader because it sounds like something they’d hear someone say in real life.
While speaking, people use contractions, end sentences with prepositions, and use simple words. So I try to mirror those things in my writing. I avoid fancy words unless they’re truly the best way to express the concept.
The best writers slip into the background. You don’t even know they’re there.
8. “Your job is to collect good ideas. The more good ideas you collect, the more you can choose from to be influenced by.” -Austin Kleon
I would be neglecting my duty as a writer if I didn’t read the work of other writers. Reading is half of writing.
Reading generates inspiration. It prompts self-reflection and teaches us what works and what doesn’t. Reading offers writers an arsenal of material that can be weaponized for future books and articles.
As I mentioned at the start of this article, I collect my favorite quotes, ideas, and stories in a commonplace book. Other writers collect tidbits in a personal journal or computer app. Regardless of the mechanism, as writers we must become collectors of good ideas.
9. “Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But, since no one was listening, everything must be said again.” -André Gide
I get disappointed when I stumble across an article that talks about something I was planning to write about. My brain tells me that if someone has already written about that topic, I should shelve my idea and move onto something else.
But then I’ll stumble across a second article about the same topic — one that speaks to me in a way that the first one didn’t. Perhaps the second author shares a unique perspective or opens up with an incredible story that frames the topic in a fresh and more effective way than the first author.
These situations remind me that every topic has been covered before. As the book of Ecclesiastes says, “There is nothing new under the sun.”
Although (nearly) every path has been traversed before, writers can serve as tour guides that explain familiar scenery in a way the audience has never heard. That’s what we are as writers — tour guides who offer a new perspective about a familiar trail.
10. Reading good nonfiction is an opportunity “to watch somebody reasonably bright, but also reasonably average, pay far closer attention and think at far more length about all sorts of different stuff than most of us have a chance to in our daily lifes.” -David Foster Wallace
I frequently think about this quote when I write. It’s encouraging to realize that good writing doesn’t require brilliance or the proverbial favor of the gods.
In order to produce quality writing, we must do the following:
- Become relentless observers of the world around us (nature, life experiences, books, etc.)
- Collect and document ideas and themes we encounter (commonplacing, journaling, etc.)
- Dwell upon those ideas for an unreasonable amount of time (meditation, long walks, more journaling, deep talks with friends, etc.)
- Begin putting those thoughts on paper (as Anne Lamott says, we must create “shitty first drafts”)
- Edit out the shit (write, re-write, edit, and re-write again)
Writers stick with problems far longer than non-writers. They push through the discomfort to create something of substance.
11. “Sometimes I write better than I can.” -Ernest Hemingway
Writing is a strange craft. There’s a magic to it. Here’s what I mean…
I’ve always read the work of my favorite authors and thought to myself, “There’s no way in hell I could ever write like that.” But I have the same thought when I read some of the pieces I’ve written: “There’s no way I produced this. I’m not a good enough writer to write something like that.”
The reason this happens is because a writer’s best work is what makes it into the final draft. By the time the story is finished, all of the shitty work is (hopefully) gone. You’ve edited it out of the piece.
It’s like viewing a stock market chart — one with a bunch of highs and lows — but the lows are all lopped off the chart. Someone has edited the chart so the valleys don’t show up; you only see the peaks. That’s the power of writing. As a writer, as long as I do the hard work of re-writing and editing, every piece I publish should be far beyond the scope of my “normal” abilities.
12. “A writer is someone who has taught his mind to misbehave.” -Oscar Wilde
The most memorable stories are the unexpected ones. We remember The Cat in the Hat, Alice in Wonderland, and Gulliver’s Travels because they break the mold of everyday experience. They surprise us in clever and amusing ways.
Authors like Dr. Seuss, Lewis Carroll, and Jonathan Swift allowed their minds to misbehave. They unlocked the gates of their imagination and let it lead them to fascinating, weird places.
Ideas should flow unhindered from the pen. Only once ideas have pooled upon the page can we begin to cull the word herd.
The best nonfiction writers do the same thing: they surprise and delight readers with unexpected twists and fascinating stories. They say things that others are unwilling to say.
13. “It is important to separate the creator and the editor or internal censor when you practice writing, so that the creator has space to breathe, explore, and express.” -Natalie Goldberg
Businesses often host “brainstorming meetings” wherein no idea is a bad idea. Rather than debating the flaws of each idea, the goal is to generate as many ideas as possible. Such meetings are effective because they put every attendee into full “creator mode” — no editing or second-guessing allowed.
It’s often helpful to view writing in a similar way. Many authors, including Goldberg cited above, talk about the benefits of hog-tying our internal editor while we write.
Ideas should flow unhindered from the pen. Only once ideas have pooled upon the page can we begin to cull the word herd.
14. “When your story is ready for rewrite, cut it to the bone. Get rid of every ounce of excess fat. This is going to hurt; revising a story down to the bare essentials is always a little like murdering children, but it must be done.” -Stephen King
Editing is painful. It’s difficult to eliminate sentences and paragraphs that I’ve come to love. But editing is what separates spellbinding authors from those who cannot even hold a reader’s attention for a five-minute article.
When I edit, I look for things like the following:
- Sentences that don’t add value
- Unnecessary adjectives and adverbs
- Spelling and grammatical mistakes
- Words that aren’t quite right
Every edit and re-write takes time but also gives me more reason to be proud of what I’ve written.
15. “You know what I did after I wrote my first novel? I shut up and wrote twenty-three more.” -Michael Connelly
Sometimes I pour ten hours into writing a ten-minute article, only to have 100 people read it.
This feels like dropping a boulder into a lake and watching a few bubbles arise rather than the big splash you anticipated. It sucks.
In these moments, I remind myself why I write. I write because I love it. I write because I think my writing will help someone else — even if that only means a single person. I write because I’m in it for the long haul: becoming a better writer and communicator, publishing work that makes me proud, doing something meaningful.
As writers, the best way for us to accomplish our goals is to keep publishing. Crank out another article. Make it even better than the last. Begin writing the next book. Don’t lose focus. Don’t mistake the marathon for a sprint.
16. “We surrender the outcomes because we cannot control how people are going to respond to us and our work in the world.” -Rob Bell
Once I’ve published a story, I have zero control over what happens. That is simultaneously refreshing and horrifying.
The ancient Stoics believed that a core aspect of living was recognizing what we control and what we don’t. As a writer, I control my influences (books, articles, personal experiences, etc.), my work ethic, the time I’m willing to put into a piece, and the intensity of my editing process.
Here’s a list of a few things I can’t control: how many people read what I’ve written, what they think about what I wrote, whether and how they comment on my stories, how many times they re-share my post, what they say on social media about it, whether my piece gets syndicated or published by a large publication, how much money I make from the story, whether an agent stumbles upon that story, whether I’m offered a book deal, etc. etc. etc.
There are a litany of things I cannot control. Once I hit “Publish,” my work becomes the property of each reader. They choose what happens to it. And that’s okay.
As writers, the sooner we become comfortable with the things we cannot control, the more we will enjoy the writing process.
The writers who have gone before us have given us a path to success, contentment, and joy in our craft. Let’s learn from them:
1. Write to discover what you think and believe.
2. Writing is as much about grit as it is about creativity.
3. Starting is the scariest part.
4. Don’t wait for inspiration.
5. Begin writing and your brain will fill in the gaps.
6. Creativity is fueled by the unknown. Embrace that unknown.
7. Write like you speak.
8. Become a collector of good ideas.
9. Serve as a tour guide who offers a new perspective on a familiar trail.
10. Dwell upon ideas for an unreasonable amount of time.
11. Good editing helps you write beyond your abilities.
12. Teach your mind to misbehave.
13. Separate your creator from your editor.
14. Revise your story to its bare essentials.
15. Write your next story.
16. Control what you can control and surrender the outcome.
Take heart. Keep writing.
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