33 Quotes On Writing Inspiration

Whether you're a seasoned author or just starting your writing journey, we all occasionally find ourselves searching for that spark of inspiration. Writing is not just about putting words on paper; it's about expressing thoughts, evoking emotions, and breathing life into the ideas that dance in our minds. To help fuel your creativity and passion, we've compiled a curated collection of the top 33 quotes on writing inspiration. These gems of wisdom from renowned authors, poets, and thinkers will encourage you to embrace the challenges and joys of writing, reminding you why you started this journey in the first place. Dive into these insights and let them guide you through writer’s block, ignite your imagination, and inspire you to put pen to paper with renewed enthusiasm.

1. “Inspiration is wonderful when it happens, but the writer must develop an approach for the rest of the time... The wait is simply too long.” - Leonard Bernstein

2. “The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shockproof, shit detector.” - Hemingway, Ernest

3. “There are books full of great writing that don't have very good stories. Read sometimes for the story... don't be like the book-snobs who won't do that. Read sometimes for the words--the language. Don't be like the play-it-safers who won't do that. But when you find a book that has both a good story and good words, treasure that book.” - Stephen King

4. “A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.” - Virginia Woolf

5. “You don't write because you want to say something, you write because you have something to say.” - F. Scott Fitzgerald

6. “Throw up into your typewriter every morning. Clean up every noon.” - Raymond Chandler

7. “A successful book is not made of what is in it, but what is left out of it.” - Mark Twain

8. “Give me just enough information so that I can lie convincingly.” - Stephen King

9. “I don't think anybody can teach anybody anything. I think that you learn it, but the young writer that is as I say demon-driven and wants to learn and has got to write, he don't know why, he will learn from almost any source that he finds. He will learn from older people who are not writers, he will learn from writers, but he learns it -- you can't teach it.” - William Faulkner

10. “Read widely and with discrimination. Bad writing is contagious."[Ten rules for writing fiction, The Guardian, 20 February 2010 (with Diana Athill, Margaret Atwood, Roddy Doyle, Helen Dunmore, Geoff Dyer, Anne Enright, Richard Ford, Jonathan Franzen, Esther Freud, Neil Gaiman, David Hare, and AL Kennedy)]” - P. D. James

11. “Giving a reader a sex scene that is only half right is like giving her half of a kitten. It is not half as cute as a whole kitten; it is a bloody, godawful mess.” - Howard Mittelmark

12. “If food is poetry, is not poetry also food?” - Joyce Carol Oates

13. “1. Write like you’ll live forever — fear is a bad editor.2. Write like you’ll croak today — death is the best editor.3. Fooling others is fun. Fooling yourself is a lethal mistake.4. Pick one — fame or delight.5. The archer knows the target. The poet knows the wastebasket.6. Cunning and excess are your friends.7. TV and liquor are your enemies.8. Everything eternal happens in a spare room at 3 a.m.9. You’re done when the crows sing.” - Ron Dakron

14. “Your writing is never as good as you hoped; but never as bad as you feared.” - Bertrand Russell

15. “Writing is one of the few careers for which you essentially train yourself, the other two major ones being juggling and pickpocketing.” - Maureen Johnson

16. “All the stories I would like to write persecute me. When I am in my chamber, it seems as if they are all around me, like little devils, and while one tugs at my ear, another tweaks my nose, and each says to me, 'Sir, write me, I am beautiful.” - Umberto Eco

17. “...but every person who does serious time with a keyboard is attempting to translate his version of the world into words so that he might be understood.” - Betsy Lerner

18. “The writer's only responsibility is to his art. He will be completely ruthless if he is a good one. He has a dream. It anguishes him so much he must get rid of it. He has no peace until then. Everything goes by the board: honor, pride, decency, security, happiness, all, to get the book written. If a writer has to rob his mother, he will not hesitate; the 'Ode on a Grecian Urn' is worth any number of old ladies.” - William Faulkner

19. “Being an author, is being a dictator. (in a good way)” - Pseudonymous Bosch

20. “All I ask is that you do as well as you can, and remember that, while to write adverbs is human, to write he said or she said is divine.” - Stephen King

21. “Grammar is...the pole you grab to get your thoughts up on their feet and walking.” - Stephen King

22. “Write to your fear.” - Dorothy Allison

23. “The two things I enjoy the most about writing are the first page of a book and the last. What's in between is very hard work.” - Rachel Gibson

24. “A novel is never anything, but a philosophy put into images.” - Albert Camus

25. “I'd love to write some porn, but I don't know if I have the right engines. When I was a young man and I was tempted to write porn, imaginary parents would appear over my shoulder and read what I was writing; just about the point that I managed to banish the imaginary parents, real children would lean over my shoulder and read what I was writing.” - Neil Gaiman

26. “In a way, “failure” is just another word for “the journey,” for not being there yet but on the way. It’s the road we walk on to get wherever it is we’re trying to go.” - Sara Zarr

27. “Story is honorable and trustworthy; plot is shifty, and best kept under house arrest.” - Stephen King

28. “Writing is 1 percent inspiration, and 99 percent elimination.” - Louise Brooks

29. “I have completed and uncompleted screenplays, but they both fall into the category of “unsold.” I’ve seen quite a few movies where the screenplays seemed to be in the “uncompleted” category yet still got sold and made into movies, so I generally refer too all screenplays as “sold” or “unsold.” But that’s just my own filing system.” - Gary Reilly

30. “My reason for being an author? Because I love to write - it fulfills me. But the fact that I entertain others by doing it is a lovely bonus.” - Chasta Schneider

31. “I have found that a writer is formed not so much by their experiences but by the way in which they view and capture those experiences.” - H Raven Rose

32. “I hope that I capture something in my work that is about the elusive, the magical and powerful and the transformative. The writing in itself is transformative for me.” - H Raven Rose

33. “Remember The Poem ...” - R.M. Engelhardt