Inspirational Quotes

I had a great post that I wanted to put up today, but I'm elbow-deep in revisions and didn't get it finished. So, I have some more great quotes for you to peruse in the mean time. Enjoy!

Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self.

- Cyril Connolly

You can't sit around and wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.

- Jack London

What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.

- Samuel Johnson

Rewriting is like scrubbing the basement floor with a toothbrush.

- Pete Murphy

There is no great writing, only great rewriting.

- Justice Brandeis

Inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us just get up and go to work.

- Chuck Close

Exercise the writing muscle every day, even if it is only a letter, notes, a title list, a character sketch, a journal entry. Writers are like dancers, like athletes. Without that exercise the muscles seize up.

- Jane Yolen, Merlin

Being a writer is like having homework every night for the rest of your life.

- Lawrence Kasdan

There are some books that refuse to be written. They stand their ground year after year and will not be persuaded. It isn't because the book is not there and worth being written — it is only because the right form of the story does not present itself. There is only one right form for a story and if you fail to find that form the story will not tell itself.

- Mark Twain

The secret of good writing is to say an old thing in a new way or to say a new thing in an old way.

- Richard Harding Davis

Asking a writer what he thinks about criticism is like asking a lamppost what it feels about dogs.

- John Osborne

Critics are like eunuchs in a harem: they know how it's done, they've seen it done every day, but they are unable to do it themselves.

- Brendan Francis

Artists don't talk about art. Artists talk about work. If I have anything to say to young writers, it's stop thinking of writing as art. Think of it as work.

- Paddy Chayefsky

Writing is like hunting. There are brutally cold afternoons with nothing in sight, only the wind and your breaking heart. Then the moment when you bag something big. The entire process is beyond intoxicating.

- Kate Braverman