Now, 75 years later in an abundant society where people have laptops, cell phones, iPods and minds like empty rooms, I still plod along with books. -  Harper Lee

I think it’s the people who have no doubt that every word they put down is gold that probably don’t write very well. – Dean Koontz

One writes out of one thing only–one’s own experience. Everything depends on how relentlessly one forces from the experience the last drop, sweet or bitter, it can possibly give. – James Baldwin

Yet we must say something when those who say the most are saying nothing. – Augustine

I do not so much write a book as sit up with it, as with a dying friend. During visiting hours, I enter its room with dread and sympathy for its many disorders. I hold its hand and hope it will get better. – Annie Dillard

A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people. – Thomas Mann

Everybody starts thinking, “Nobody’s gonna want to read this trash,” at some point in the process. The best thing is just keep typing. Later that same day you’ll probably write something that really shines and start thinking you’re a genius – Athol Dickson

"We Christian writers must paint evil with the blackest of brushes, not to sow fear, but to call out the monsters to be scattered by our light. If Satan cloaks himself as an angel of white, intent on deceiving the world, any attempt on our parts to minimize evil is only complicit with his strategy… Turn to the light; don’t fear the shadows it creates." – Ted Dekker

I’m always amazed how much attitude can change during the writing of a book. One day I think, “I’m Hemingway!” and the next day I think, “I can’t even construct a decent sentence.” – Tim Downs

The pages are still blank, but there is a miraculous feeling of the words being there, written in invisible ink and clamoring to become visible.   – Vladimir Nabakov

Ink and paper are sometimes passionate lovers, oftentimes brother and sister, and occasionally mortal enemies.  – Emme Woodhull-Bäche

Writing is easy:  All you do is sit staring at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead.   – Gene Fowler

Everywhere I go I’m asked if I think the university stifles writers.  My opinion is that they don’t stifle enough of them.  There’s many a bestseller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.  – Flannery O’Connor

What no wife of a writer can ever understand is that a writer is working when he’s staring out of the window.   – Burton Rascoe

Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness.  One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.  – George Orwell

I owe my success to having listened respectfully to the very best advice, and then going away and doing the exact opposite. – G. K. Chesterton

Everybody walks past a thousand story ideas every day. The good writers are the ones who see five or six of them. Most people don’t see any. – Orson Scott Card

If you’re going to be a writer, the first essential is just to write. Do not wait for an idea. Start writing something and the ideas will come. You have to turn the faucet on before the water starts to flow. – Louis L’Amour

You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club. – Jack London

When we read, we stat at the beginning and continue until we reach the end. When we write, we start in the middle and fight our way out. – Vickie Karp

The difference between fiction and reality is that fiction has to make sense. – Tom Clancy

It begins with a character, usually, and once he stands up on his feet and begins to move, all I can do is trot along behind him with a paper and pencil trying to keep up long enough to put down what he says and does. – William Faulkner

Writing a book is a adventure. To begin with it is a toy and amusement. Then it becomes a mistress, then it becomes a master, then it becomes a tyrant. The last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster and fling him out to the public. – Winston Churchill