Quotes about Writing: I

Literature flourishes best when it is half a trade and half an art. ~ William Ralph Inge
A writer never has a vacation. For a writer life consists of either writing or thinking about writing. ~ Eugene Ionesco
Why do people always expect authors to answer questions? I am an author because I want to ASK questions. If I had answers I'd be a politician. ~ Eugene Ionesco
Half my life is an act of revision. ~ John Irving
The way you define yourself as a writer is that you write every time you have a free minute. If you didn't behave that way you would never do anything. ~ John Irving
A writer's job is to imagine everything so personally that the fiction is as vivid as memories. ~ John Irving
The literary world is made up of little confederacies, each looking upon its own members as the lights of the universe; and considering all others as mere transient meteors, doomed to soon fall and be forgotten, while its own luminaries are to shine steadily into immortality. ~ Washington Irving
Keep in mind that the person to write for is yourself. Tell the story that you most desperately want to read. ~ Susan Isaacs

Quotes about Writing: J

And if I have to be a thieving, immoral crow in order to write a book, then by God, I'll grow black feathers on my fanny and croak as loud as I can. ~ Pasi Jääskeläinen
Be yourself. Above all, let who you are, what you are, what you believe, shine through every sentence you write, every piece you finish ~ John Jakes
The deepest quality of a work of art will always be the quality of the mind of the producer...No good novel will ever proceed from a superficial mind. ~ Henry James
The only reason for the existence of a novel is that it does attempt to represent life. ~ Henry James
Make [the reader] think the evil, make him think it for himself, and you are released from weak specifications. ~ Henry James
What is either a picture or a novel that is not character? ~ Henry James
Writing is not primarily escape, but use. ~ Henry James
Publishers don't nurse you; they buy and sell you. ~ P D James

When something can be read without effort, great effort has gone into its writing. ~ Enrique Jardiel Poncela
The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do. ~ Thomas Jefferson
Where strictness of grammar does not weaken expression, it should be attended to. . . . But where, by small grammatical negligences, the energy of an idea is condensed, or a word stands for a sentence, I hold grammatical rigor in contempt. ~ Thomas Jefferson
He who limps is still walking. ~ Stanislaw Jerzy Lec
Artistic honesty sometimes prevents an artist from being born. ~ Stanislaw Jerzy Lec
The moment of recognizing your own lack of talent is a flash of genius. ~ Stanislaw Jerzy Lec
The two most engaging powers of an author are, to make new things familiar, and familiar things new. ~ Samuel Johnson
Language is the dress of thought. ~ Samuel Johnson
Abuse is often service. There is nothing so dangerous to an author as silence. ~ Samuel Johnson
It is advantageous to an author that his book should be attacked as well as praised. Fame is a shuttlecock. If it be struck at one end of the room, it will soon fall to the ground. To keep it up, it must be struck at both ends. ~ Samuel Johnson

Read over your compositions, and when you meet a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out. ~Samuel Johnson
What is written without effort in general is read without pleasure. ~ Samuel Johnson
No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money. ~ Samuel Johnson
The chief glory of every people arises from its authors. ~ Samuel Johnson
It will not always happen that the success of a poet is proportionate to his labor. ~ Samuel Johnson
Tediousness is the most fatal of all faults. ~ Samuel Johnson

I learned to write by listening to people talk. I still feel that the best of my writing comes from having heard rather than having read. ~ Gayl Jones
Honest criticism is hard to take, particularly from a relative, a friend, an acquaintance, or a stranger. ~ Franklin Jones
Nothing changes your opinion of a friend so surely as success - yours or his. ~ Franklin Jones
The quality which makes man want to write and be read is essentially a desire for self-exposure and masochism. Like one of those guys who has a compulsion to take his thing out and show it on the street. ~ James Jones
When I read great literature, great drama, speeches, or sermons, I feel that the human mind has not achieved anything greater than the ability to share feelings and thoughts through language. ~ James Earl Jones
I went for years not finishing anything. Because, of course, when you finish something you can be judged. ... I had poems which were re-written so many times I suspect it was just a way of avoiding sending them out. ~ Erica Jong
Everyone has talent. What is rare is the courage to follow that talent to the dark place it leads. ~ Erica Jong

When I sit down at my writing desk, time seems to vanish. I think it's a wonderful way to spend one's life. ~ Erica Jong
You must find the right voice (or voices) for the timbre that can convince a reader to give himself up to you. ~ Erica Jong
Never let inexperience get in the way of ambition. ~ Terry Josephson
The artist, like the God of creation, remains within or behind or beyond or above his handiwork, invisible, refined out of existence, indifferent, paring his fingernails. ~ James Joyce
The artist is not a person endowed with free will who seeks his own ends, but one who allows art to realize its supreme purpose through him. ~ Carl Jung
Good novels are not written, they are rewritten. Great novels are diamonds mined from layered rewrites. ~ Andre Jute