280 Quotes About On-writing

Read a lot, write a lot is the great commandment.

Be yourself. Above all, let who you are, what you are, what you believe, shine through every sentence you write, every piece you finish.

You don't write because you want to say something, you write because you have something to say.

If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There's no way around these two things that I'm aware of, no shortcut.

The man that I named the Giver passed along to the boy knowledge, history, memories, color, pain, laughter, love, and truth. Every time you place a book in the hands of a child, you do the same thing. It is very risky. But each time a child opens a book, he pushes open the gate that separates him from Elsewhere. It gives him choices. It gives him freedom. Those are magnificent, wonderfully unsafe things.[from her Newberry Award acceptance speech]

The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shockproof, shit detector.

Great books write themselves, only bad books have to be written.

Writing is one of the few careers for which you essentially train yourself, the other two major ones being juggling and pickpocketing.

I have always wanted to write a book that ended with the word 'mayonnaise.