Story Writing Quotes

• Everybody walks past a thousand story ideas every day. The good writers are the ones who see five or six of them. Most people don't see any.

  Orson Scott Card

  Writing, Past, Ideas

  15 Copy quote

• 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.

  29 Copy quote

  Show source

• My own experience is that once a story has been written, one has to cross out the beginning and the end. It is there that we authors do most of our lying.

  Anton Chekhov

  Lying, Writing, Stories

  43 Copy quote

• Everybody walks past a thousand story ideas every day.

  Orson Scott Card

  Writing, Past, Ideas

  6 Copy quote

• The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Inspirational, Motivational, Teaching

  28 Copy quote

• 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

  86 Copy quote

  Show source

• If there's a book you really want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.

  Toni Morrison

  Inspirational, Happiness, Attitude

  119 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

  20 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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.

  79 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.

  85 Copy quote

  Show source

• A short story must have a single mood and every sentence must build towards it.

  Edgar Allan Poe

  Writing, Insightful, Story Writers

  71 Copy quote

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

  Ernest Hemingway

  Writing, Story Writers, Details

  16 Copy quote

• If you can tell stories, create characters, devise incidents, and have sincerity and passion, it doesn't matter a damn how you write.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Writing, Character, Passion

  32 Copy quote

• If you write one story, it may be bad; if you write a hundred, you have the odds in your favor.

  Edgar Rice Burroughs

  Writing, Odds, Stories

  "King of the Jungle" by John J. Miller, reason.com. August/September 1999.

  25 Copy quote

  Show source

• I have been successful probably because I have always realized that I knew nothing about writing and have merely tried to tell an interesting story entertainingly.

  Edgar Rice Burroughs

  Writing, Successful, Interesting

  30 Copy quote

• I love writing. I love the swirl and swing of words as they tangle with human emotions.

  James A. Michener

  Writing, Swings, Emotion

  Ernest Hemingway, James A. Michener (1986). “The dangerous summer”, Scribner Book Company

  87 Copy quote

  Show source

• Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere.

  Anne Lamott

  Writing, Effort, Needs

  Anne Lamott (2007). “Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life”, p.25, Anchor

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• The unread story is not a story; it is little black marks on wood pulp. The reader, reading it, makes it live: a live thing, a story.

  Ursula K. Le Guin

  Book, Reading, Writing

  Ursula K. Le Guin (1997). “Dancing at the Edge of the World: Thoughts on Words, Women, Places”, p.198, Grove Press

  24 Copy quote

  Show source

• After nourishment, shelter and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world.

  Philip Pullman

  Book, Writing, Mind

  14 Copy quote

• Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.

  William Wordsworth

  Life, Beauty, Beautiful

  William Wordsworth, Dorothy Wordsworth, Ernest De Selincourt, Alan G. Hill, Chester Linn Shaver (1967). “The Letters of William and Dorothy Wordsworth: Volume VIII. A Supplement of New Letters”, p.51, Oxford University Press on Demand

  107 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

  30 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

  8 Copy quote

• 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

  Hurt, Children, Writing

  9 Copy quote

• I don't care if a reader hates one of my stories, just as long as he finishes the book.

  Roald Dahl

  Hate, Book, Reading

  9 Copy quote

• All the words I use in my stories can be found in the dictionary-it's just a matter of arranging them into the right sentences.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Writing, Matter, Story Writers

  15 Copy quote