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1) Stephen King

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.

2) Suzanne Collins

All the writing elements are the same. You need to tell a good story… You’ve got good characters… People think there’s some dramatic difference between writing ‘Little Bear’ and the ‘Hunger Games,’ and as a writer, for me, there isn’t.

3) George Orwell

For a creative writer possession of the ‘truth’ is less important than emotional sincerity.

4) John Steinbeck 

The writer must believe that what he is doing is the most important thing in the world. And he must hold to this illusion even when he knows it is not true.

5) Chuck Palahniuk

Being lonely is not a bad thing for a writer.

6) Michael Morpurgo

The most important thing is to live an interesting life. Keep your eyes, ears and heart open. Talk to people and visit interesting places, and don’t forget to ask questions. To be a writer you need to drink in the world around you so it’s always there in your head.

7) Epictetus

If you wish to be a writer, write.

8) John Irving

More than a half, maybe as much as two-thirds of my life as a writer is rewriting. I wouldn’t say I have a talent that’s special. It strikes me that I have an unusual kind of stamina.

9) Samuel Johnson

The greatest part of a writer’s time is spent in reading in order to write. A man will turn over half a library to make a book.

10) Lois Lowry

I’m a writer; I like to retain subtlety and nuance.

11) George R.R. Martin

I believe that a writer learns from every story he writes, and when you try different things, you learn different lessons. 

12) William Golding

The writer probably knows what he meant when he wrote a book, but he should immediately forget what he meant when he’s written it.

13) Friedrich Nietzsche

A good writer possesses not only his own spirit but also the spirit of his friends.

14) Robert Frost

No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader.

15) Hunter S. Thompson

The writer must be a participant in the scene… like a film director who writes his own scripts, does his own camera work, and somehow manages to film himself in action, as the protagonist or at least the main character.

16) Anais Nin

The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say.

17) Rod Serling

Every writer is a frustrated actor who recites his lines in the hidden auditorium of his skull.

18) Neil Gaiman

So I went out and bought myself a copy of the Writer and Artist Yearbook, bought lots of magazines and got on the phone and talked to editors about ideas for stories. Pretty soon I found myself hired to do interviews and articles and went off and did them.

19) J.K Rowling

I’m a writer, and I will write what I want to write.

20) P.G Wodehouse

Success comes to a writer as a rule, so gradually that it is always something of a shock to him to look back and realize the heights to which he has climbed.

21) F. Scott Fitzgerald

My idea is always to reach my generation. The wise writer writes for the youth of his own generation, the critics of the next, and the schoolmasters of ever afterward.

22) John Green

I know that books seem like the ultimate thing that’s made by one person, but that’s not true. Every reading of a book is a collaboration between the reader and the writer who are making the story up together.

23) Maya Angelou

Easy reading is damn hard writing. But if it’s right, it’s easy. It’s the other way round, too. If it’s slovenly written, then it’s hard to read. It doesn’t give the reader what the careful writer can give the reader.

24) Confucius

It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.

25) Richard Bach

A professional writer is an amateur who didn’t quit.

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