60+ Writing Quotes to get You Through Your Writing Projects

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When I used to do National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), I would often get stuck. Whether that was on plot, setting struggles, character development… and it was super nice to have some quotes from authors to remind myself that it’s a) not that bad and b) famous authors sometimes get stuck too. And boy are they inspiring.

So if you’re looking for writing quotes to get you through your next writing project (something like NaNo or other writing projects!) then I hope these help you stay focused and also inspired!

This was originally a freebie that I offered, but when NaNoWriMo ceased to exist, I archived the freebie. I thought I’d bring it back in blog post format for you!

61 Inspiring Writing Quotes

“If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” – Toni Morrison

“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” – Ernest Hemingway

“You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children.” – Madeleine L’Engle

“If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.” – Stephen King

“Substitute ‘damn’ every time you’re inclined to write ‘very;’ your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.” – Mark Twain

“We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect.” – Anais Nin

“You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write.” – Saul Bellow

“Creativity takes courage.” – Henri Matisse

“No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader.” – Robert Frost

“Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.” – Anton Chekhov

“There is no real ending. It’s just the place where you stop the story.” – Frank Herbert

“Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on.” – Louis L’Amour

“After nourishment, shelter and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world.” – Philip Pullman

“Stories may well be lies, but they are good lies that say true things, and which can sometimes pay the rent.” – Neil Gaiman

“Words do not express thoughts very well. They always become a little different immediately after they are expressed, a little distorted, a little foolish.” – Hermann Hesse

“All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.” – Ernest Hemingway

“If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.” – Stephen King

“A word after a word after a word is power.” – Margaret Atwood

“Tomorrow may be hell, but today was a good writing day, and on the good writing days nothing else matters.” – Neil Gaiman

“There is something delicious about writing the first words of a story. You never quite know where they’ll take you.” – Beatrix Potter

“You must write every single day of your life… You must lurk in libraries and climb the stacks like ladders to sniff books like perfumes and wear books like hats upon your crazy heads… may you be in love every day for the next 20,000 days. And out of that love, remake a world.” – Ray Bradbury

“You can make anything by writing.” – CS Lewis

“You should write because you love the shape of stories and sentences and the creation of different words on a page. Writing comes from reading, and reading is the finest teacher of how to write.” – Annie Proulx

“This is how you do it: you sit down at the keyboard and you put one word after another until it’s done. It’s that easy, and that hard.” – Neil Gaiman

“A well-composed book is a magic carpet on which we are wafted to a world that we cannot enter in any other way.” – Caroline Gordon

“You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.” – Jack London

“The role of a writer is not to say what we can all say, but what we are unable to say.” – Anais Nin

“If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn’t brood. I’d type a little faster.” – Isaac Asimov

“Some of these things are true and some of them lies. But they are all good stories.” – Hilary Mantel

“If we don’t tell strange stories, when something strange happens we won’t believe it.” – Shannon Hale

“Write the kind of story you would like to read. People will give you all sorts of advice about writing, but if you are not writing something you like, no one else will like it either.” – Meg Cabot

“The purpose of a writer is to keep civilisation from destroying itself.” – Albert Camus

“A little talent is a good thing to have if you want to be a writer. But the only real requirement is the ability to remember every scar.” – Stephen King

“Cut out all these exclamation points. An exclamation point is like laughing at your own joke.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald

“Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.” – Pablo Picasso

“Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.” – Scott Adams

“A story only matters, I suspect, to the extent that the people in the story change.” – Neil Gaiman

“Writing isn’t about making money, getting famous, getting dates, getting laid, or making friends. In the end, it’s about enriching the lives of those who will read your work, and enriching your own life, as well. It’s about getting up, getting well, and getting over. Getting happy, okay? Getting happy.” – Stephen King

“Write what should not be forgotten.” – Isabel Allende

“I love writing. I love the swirl and swing of words as they tangle with human emotions.” – James Michener

“You can fix anything but a blank page.” – Nora Roberts

“Sometimes writing is running downhill, your fingers jerking behind you on the keyboard the way your legs do when they can’t quite keep up with gravity.” – Rainbow Rowell

“The reason that fiction is more interesting than any other form of literature, to those who really like to study people, is that in fiction the author can really tell the truth without humiliating himself.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

“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

“Writing is something you do alone. It’s a profession for introverts who want to tell you a story but don’t want to make eye contact while doing it.” – John Green

“In writing, you must kill all your darlings.” – William Faulkner

“A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.” – G.K. Chesterton

“The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.” – Thomas Jefferson

“I write for the same reason I breathe – because if I didn’t, I would die.” – Isaac Asimov

“Your intuition knows what to write, so get out of the way.” – Ray Bradbury

“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

“Cram your head with characters and stories. Abuse your library privileges. Never stop looking at the world, and never stop reading to find out what sense other people have made of it. If people give you a hard time and tell you to get your nose out of a book, tell them you’re working. Tell them it’s research. Tell them to pipe down and leave you alone.” – Jennifer Weiner

“There’s always a story. It’s all stories, really. The sun coming up every day is a story. Everything’s got a story in it. Change the story, change the world.” – Terry Pratchett

“Don’t worry about what you’re writing or whether it’s good or even whether it makes sense.” – Lauren Oliver

“It’s not always about writing more words or drinking more coffee. Sometimes getting to the end of a novel simply takes remembering that the world is more complicated than we now, and then sticking some of those complications into the story.” – Scott Westerfeld

“Novel writing, I’ve discovered, is the most liberating. You can write the narrative in the past, present, or future, and from any viewpoint or philosophy, including your own. The only keeper you answer to is your own creativity. It’s total autonomy.” – Don Roff

“Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions.” – Albert Einstein

“You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.” – Maya Angelou

“All that I hope to say in books, all that I ever hope to say, is that I love the world.” – E.B. White

“One should use common words to say uncommon things.” – Arthur Schopenhauer

“A story is a letter that the author writes to himself, to tell himself things that he would be unable to discover otherwise.” – Carlos Ruiz Zafón

Quotes discovered from: Goodreads, StoryGraph, and various other lists out there. If you spot one that you believe to be incorrect, please do let me know! 😊

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The more I read these now, the more I wish that NaNoWriMo still existed. It shut down due to financial reasons, and you can read more about that on The Plottery.

I realise I could get back to my own writing in my own time – but that’s just the thing. It was so good to be able to have a set time and month to write write write. When I do it on my own … it literally doesn’t happen.

Ah well! I hope that these writing quotes have given you a little spark or inspiration or just reminds you how wonderufl and magical stories and storytelling can be.

I’d love to know: If you did NaNoWriMo back in the day … what have you been doing since it closed?