Short Writing Quotes

• Easy reading is damn hard writing.

  Nathaniel Hawthorne

  Powerful, Reading, Writing

  27 Copy quote

• Not that the story need be long, but it will take a long while to make it short.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Writing, Long, Insightful

  Letter to Harrison Blake, 16 Nov. 1857 See Pascal 1; Woodrow Wilson 25

  24 Copy quote

  Show source

• No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader.

  Ernest Hemingway

  Reading, Book, Writing

  "The Figure a Poem Makes". Book by Ernest Hemingway, 1939.

  35 Copy quote

  Show source

• Find the key emotion; this may be all you need know to find your short story.

  F. Scott Fitzgerald

  Writing, Keys, Story Writers

  10 Copy quote

• There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Writing, Real Talk, Story Writers

  44 Copy quote

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

  Jack London

  Inspirational, Funny, Witty

  Jack London (2015). “Jack London on Adventure: Words of Wisdom from an Expert Adventurer”, p.5, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

  88 Copy quote

  Show source

• There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.

  Ernest Hemingway

  Writing, Bad Ass, Typewriters

  "Exclusive: Never-Before-Seen Photos from Hemingway's Childhood" by James Joiner, www.esquire.com. October 24, 2013.

  96 Copy quote

  Show source

• You learn by writing short stories. Keep writing short stories. The money's in novels, but writing short stories keeps your writing lean and pointed.

  Larry Niven

  Writing, Stories, Story Writers

  14 Copy quote

• Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness.

  George Orwell

  Struggle, Book, Writing

  George Orwell (1970). “A Collection of Essays”, p.316, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme.

  Herman Melville

  Book, Writing, Fleas

  Moby Dick ch. 104 (1851)

  51 Copy quote

  Show source

• A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Book, Reading, Hero

  1905 Heretics, ch.15.

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.

  Sylvia Plath

  Life, Sad, Writing

  Sylvia Plath (2013). “The Journals of Sylvia Plath”, p.85, Anchor

  97 Copy quote

  Show source

• The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.

  Sylvia Plath

  Inspirational, Life, Beautiful

  Sylvia Plath (2007). “The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath”, p.545, Anchor

  42 Copy quote

  Show source

• We write to taste life twice, in the moment, and in retrospection.

  Anais Nin

  Love, Writing, Heart

  "Woman as Writer" by Jeannette L. Webber and Joan Grumman, (p. 38), 1978.

  34 Copy quote

  Show source

• My task, which I am trying to achieve is, by the power of the written word, to make you hear, to make you feel--it is, before all, to make you see.

  Joseph Conrad

  Writing, Trying, Tasks

  The Nigger of the Narcissus preface (1897)

  32 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  Writing, Story Writers, Details

  50 Copy quote

• No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader.

  Robert Frost

  Book, Reading, Writing

  Collected Poems (1939) "Figure a Poem Makes"

  19 Copy quote

  Show source

• Read, read read. Read everything.

  William Faulkner

  Writing, Famous Writers, Writers Reading

  11 Copy quote

• Writing is turning one's worst moments into money.

  J. P. Donleavy

  Writing, Worst Moments, Writing Fiction

  Quoted in Playboy, May 1979

  23 Copy quote

  Show source

• Details make stories human, and the more human a story can be, the better.

  Ernest Hemingway

  Writing, Story Writers, Details

  19 Copy quote

• Tomorrow may be hell, but today was a good writing day, and on the good writing days nothing else matters.

  Neil Gaiman

  Writing, May, Matter

  "Somewhat Less Sinister Ducks". Personal Website, journal.neilgaiman.com. April 23, 2004.

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written.

  Oscar Wilde

  Book, Reading, Writing

  The Picture of Dorian Gray preface (1891)

  15 Copy quote

  Show source

• Science fiction writers, I am sorry to say, really do not know anything.

  Philip K. Dick

  Sorry, Writing, Fiction

  Philip K. Dick (1985). “I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon”, Doubleday Books

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout with some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.

  George Orwell

  Struggle, Book, Writing

  George Orwell (1970). “A Collection of Essays”, p.316, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  53 Copy quote

  Show source

• Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.

  Oscar Wilde

  Book, Writing, Reading Literature

  The Picture of Dorian Gray preface (1891)

  9 Copy quote

  Show source