426 Quotes About Writing-craft

Each letter has a shape, she told them, one shape in the world and no other, and it is your responsibility to make it perfect.

There are many rules of good writing, but the best way to find them is to be a good reader.

There's no right way of writing. There's only your way.

Writer's block? I've never heard of a plumber complain about plumber's block.

Remember that you don't write a story because you have an idea but because you have a believable character.

There is no bombast, no similes, flowers, digressions, or unnecessary descriptions. Everything tends directly to the catastrophe.

I’ve come to the end of another book alive. At times like this I’m always at a loss for words.

You can’t just come out and say what you have to say. That’s what people do on airplanes, when a man plops down next to you in the aisle seat of your flight to New York, spills peanuts all over the place (back when the cheapskate airlines at least gave you peanuts), and tells you about what his boss did to him the day before. You know how your eyes glaze over when you hear a story like that? That’s because of the way he’s telling his story. You need a good way to tell your story.

I had declared in public my desire to be a writer ... I wanted to develop a curiosity that was oceanic and insatiable as well as a desire to learn and use every word in the English language that didn't sound pretentious or ditzy.