Writing can be lonely sometimes.
You write and write but can’t get results, or you just can’t shake off the feeling that you’re inadequate.
You’re not alone.
We all feel the same way, and even successful writers and philosophers who were the best of their time couldn’t shake of these feelings either. No matter how much you achieve, it isn’t enough. And no matter how successful you are, that feeling of inadequacy will still be there.
The solution to this, however, is motivation. Instead of worrying about perfection or inadequacy, why not get inspiration from those you look up to? Why not see how they’re made, and what they’ll do in the same situation as you?
Here are 201 writing quotes to keep you motivated today.
While there are a lot of quotes listed, the idea is that you should read them gradually. Some of the quotes below will motivate you, some will make you think, and almost every quote has a deeper meaning. Bookmark this page today, and come back to it every day for a new quote to refresh your day.
If you wish to be a writer, write – Epictetus
There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you – Maya Angelou
If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it – Toni Morrison
Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter – Martin Luther King Jr.
We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect – Anaïs Nin
In utter loneliness a writer tries to explain the inexplicable – John Steinbeck
I must write it all out, at any cost. Writing is thinking. It is more than living, for it is being conscious of living – Anne Morrow Lindbergh
So the writer who breeds more words than he needs, is making a chore for the reader who reads – Dr. Seuss
If you do not breathe through writing, if you do not cry out in writing, or sing in writing, then don’t write, because our culture has no use for it – Anais Nin
A good writer possesses not only his own spirit but also the spirit of his friends – Friedrich Nietzsche
No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader – Robert Frost
For a creative writer, possession of the “truth” is less important than emotional sincerity – George Orwell
Never write anything that does not give you great pleasure. Emotion is easily transferred from the writer to the reader – Joseph Joubert
I learned never to empty the well of my writing, but always to stop when there was still something there in the deep part of the well, and let it refill at night from the springs that fed it – Ernest Hermingway
One must be an inventor to read well. There is then creative reading as well as creative writing – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read – Groucho Marx
If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that – Stephen King
Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault. Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope. They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only Beauty. There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all – Oscar Wilde
The ear is the only true writer and the only true reader – Robert Frost
Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man – Francis Bacon
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 – Samuel Johnson
What I do believe is that there is always a relationship between writing and reading, a constant interplay between the writer on the one hand and the reader on the other – Guillermo Cabrera Infante
Read, read, read. Read everything — trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You’ll absorb it. Then write. If it’s good, you’ll find out. If it’s not, throw it out of the window – William Faulkner
If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot – Stephen King
Those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind – Bernard M Baruch
A bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song – Maya Angelou
However great a man’s natural talent may be, the act of writing cannot be learned all at once – Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Some critics will write ‘Maya Angelou is a natural writer’ – which is right after being a natural heart surgeon – Maya Angelou
A professional writer is an amateur who didn’t quit – Richard Bach
The first draft of anything is shit – Ernest Hermingway
But I am learning that perfection isn’t what matters. In fact, it’s the very thing that can destroy you if you let it – Emily Giffin
Remember that fear always lurks behind perfectionism. Confronting your fears and allowing yourself the right to be human can, paradoxically, make you a far happier and more productive person – David M Burns
Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people – Ane Lamott
Perfectionism is self-abuse of the highest order – Anne Wilson Schaef
The grandest seduction of all is the myth that DOING EVERYTHING BETTER gets us where we want to be. It gets us somewhere, certainly, but not anywhere worth being – Shauna Niequist
At its root, perfectionism isn’t really about a deep love of being meticulous. It’s about fear. Fear of making a mistake. Fear of disappointing others. Fear of failure. Fear of success – Michael Law
Preciousness and perfectionism are the enemies of laughter, Feig says. I’d go further: They can be inimical to creativity itself – Scott Brown
The writer of originality, unless dead, is always shocking, scandalous; novelty disturbs and repels – Simone de Beauvoir
Do what you feel in your heart to be right – for you’ll be criticized anyway – Eleanor Roosevelt
You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life – Winston S. Churchill
Don’t pay any attention to what they write about you. Just measure it in inches – Andy Warhol
Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires some of the same courage that a soldier needs. Peace has its victories, but it takes brave men and women to win them – Ralph Waldo Emerson
To avoid criticism say nothing, do nothing, be nothing – Aristotle
The public is wonderfully tolerant. It forgives everything except genius – Oscar Wilde
If you have no critics you’ll likely have no success – Malcom X
Some who have read the book, or at any rate have reviewed it, have found it boring, absurd, or contemptible, and I have no cause to complain, since I have similar opinions of their works, or of the kinds of writing that they evidently prefer – J.R.R Tolkien
If you show someone something you’ve written, you give them a sharpened stake, lie down in your coffin, and say, ‘When you’re ready’ – David Mitchell
If critics say your work stinks it’s because they want it to stink and they can make it stink by scaring you into conformity with their comfortable little standards. Standards so low that they can no longer be considered “dangerous” but set in place in their compartmental understandings – Jack Kerouac
Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ignore all hatred and criticism. Live for what you create, and die protecting it – Lady Gaga
Animals are such agreeable friends – they ask no questions, they pass no criticisms – George Eliot
The artist doesn’t have time to listen to the critics. The ones who want to be writers read the reviews, the ones who want to write don’t have the time to read reviews – William Faulkner
To acquire true self power you have to feel beneath no one, be immune to criticism and be fearless – Deepak Chopra
I would rather be attacked than unnoticed. For the worst thing you can do to an author is to be silent as to his works – Samuel Johnson
The Chinese use two brush strokes to write the word ‘crisis.’ One brush stroke stands for danger; the other for opportunity. In a crisis, be aware of the danger–but recognize the opportunity – JF Kennedy
You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club – Jack London
No great man ever complains of want of opportunities – Ralph Waldo Emerson
A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty – Winston S. Churchill
We often miss opportunity because it’s dressed in overalls and looks like work – Thomas Edison
With everything that has happened to you, you can either feel sorry for yourself or treat what has happened as a gift. Everything is either an opportunity to grow or an obstacle to keep you from growing. You get to choose – Wayne W. Dyer
You can’t outwit fate by standing on the sidelines placing little sidebets about the outcome of life. Either you wade in and risk everything you have to play the game or you don’t play at all. And if u don’t play u can’t win – Judith McNaught
Difficulties mastered are opportunities won – Wiston Churchill
And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt – Sylvia Plath
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 – John Steinbeck
A writer must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid – William Faulkner
You wouldn’t worry so much about what others think of you if you realized how seldom they do – Eleanor Roosevelt
All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence; then success is sure – Mark Twain
When you’re different, sometimes you don’t see the millions of people who accept you for what you are. All you notice is the person who doesn’t – Jodi Picoult
We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same – Carlos Castaneda
Success is most often achieved by those who don’t know that failure is inevitable – Coco Chanel
As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live – Johan Wolfgang von Geothe
Because one believes in oneself, one doesn’t try to convince others. Because one is content with oneself, one doesn’t need others’ approval. Because one accepts oneself, the whole world accepts him or her – Lao Tzu
Believe in yourself and there will come a day when others will have no choice but to believe with you – Cynthia Kersey
You have no responsibility to live up to what other people think you ought to accomplish. I have no responsibility to be like they expect me to be. It’s their mistake, not my failing – Richard P Feynman
Believe in yourself! Have faith in your abilities! Without a humble but reasonable confidence in your own powers you cannot be successful or happy – Norman Vincent Peale
Confidence comes not from always being right but from not fearing to be wrong – Eleanor Roosevelt
Let others determine your worth and you’re already lost, because no one wants people worth more than themselves – Peter V. Brett
The only power that exists is inside ourselves…. – Anne Rice
The good parts of a book may be only something a writer is lucky enough to overhear or it may be the wreck of his whole damn life and one is as good as the other – Ernest Hermingway
The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say – Anais Nin
My ideas usually come not at my desk writing but in the midst of living – Anais Nin
It is the function of art to renew our perception. What we are familiar with we cease to see. The writer shakes up the familiar scene, and, as if by magic, we see a new meaning in it – Anais Nin
My idea of a writer: someone interested in everything – Susan Sontag
And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt – Sylvia Plath
We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down – Kurt Vonnegut
A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others – Ayn Rand
Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions – Albert Einstein
Don’t think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity. It’s self-conscious and anything self-conscious is lousy. You can’t “try” to do things. You simply “must” do things – Ray Bradbury
The chief enemy of creativity is good sense – Pablo Picasso
You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have – Maya Angelou
There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed – Ernest Hermingway
If a writer knows enough about what he is writing about, he may omit things that he knows. The dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one ninth of it being above water – Ernest Hermingway
When writing a novel a writer should create living people; people not characters. A character is a caricature – Ernest Hermingway
Reduce your plan to writing. The moment you complete this, you will have definitely given concrete form to the intangible desire – Napoleon Hill
I have never started a poem yet whose end I knew. Writing a poem is discovering – Robert Frost
The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug – Mark Twain
You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write – Saul Bellow
Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass – Anton Chekhov
Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers – Isaac Asimov
A professional writer is an amateur who didn’t quit – Richard Bach
Writers don’t retire. I will always be a writer – Andy Rooney
Volume depends precisely on the writer’s having been able to sit in a room every day, year after year, alone – Susan Sontag
What one writer can make in the solitude of one room is something no power can easily destroy – Salman Rushdie
Easy reading is damn hard writing – Nathaniel Hawthorne
Writing is easy. You only need to stare at a blank piece of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead – Gene Fowler
You have to put in many, many, many tiny efforts that nobody sees or appreciates before you achieve anything worthwhile – Brian Tracy
The only way to get the best from the above quotes is by bookmarking this page, or by printing the quotes and getting to it every day. The quotes listed above are too powerful to be comprehended in one day, and you can see yourself going over and over a particular quote for days.
Bookmark this post on Delicious or Stumbleupon, read it regularly, and email it to friends you think will benefit from it!
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