One of the best things about studying the routines, habits, and tricks of great writers is coming across what they have to say about the craft. It’s all the better because they usually find a way to reflect that’s as memorable and clever as the other writing they produced. So here are some of the world’s great writers on the difficulties, joys, frustrations, and thrill of writing:

1) “One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple.” — Jack Kerouac

2) “No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader.” — Robert Frost

3) “Let me live, love, and say it well in good sentences.” — Sylvia Plath

4) “A word after a word after a word is power.” — Margaret Atwood

5) “You should write because you love the shape of stories and sentences and the creation of different words on a page. Writing comes from reading, and reading is the finest teacher of how to write.” — Annie Proulx

6) “Writing in English is the most ingenious torture ever devised for sins committed in previous lives.” –– James Joyce

7) “Writing has laws of perspective, of light and shade just as painting does, or music. If you are born knowing them, fine. If not, learn them. Then rearrange the rules to suit yourself.” – Truman Capote

8) “We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect.” ― Anaïs Nin

9) “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” ― Maya Angelou

10) “Your intuition knows what to write, so get out of the way.” ― Ray Bradbury

11) “You can fix anything but a blank page.” ― Nora Roberts

12) “Writing and reading decrease our sense of isolation. They deepen and widen and expand our sense of life: they feed the soul. When writers make us shake our heads with the exactness of their prose and their truths, and even make us laugh about ourselves or life, our buoyancy is restored. We are given a shot at dancing with, or at least clapping along with, the absurdity of life, instead of being squashed by it over and over again. It’s like singing on a boat during a terrible storm at sea. You can’t stop the raging storm, but singing can change the hearts and spirits of the people who are together on that ship.” ― Anne Lamott

13) “Deliver me from writers who say the way they live doesn’t matter. I’m not sure a bad person can write a good book. If art doesn’t make us better, then what on earth is it for.” ― Alice Walker

14) “Put down everything that comes into your head and then you’re a writer. But an author is one who can judge his own stuff’s worth, without pity, and destroy most of it.” – Colette

15) “Writing simply means no dependent clauses, no dangling things, no flashbacks, and keeping the subject near the predicate. We throw in as many fresh words we can get away with. Simple, short sentences don’t always work. You have to do tricks with pacing, alternate long sentences with short, to keep it vital and alive…. Virtually every page is a cliffhanger–you’ve got to force them to turn it.”― Dr. Seuss

16) “You know, it’s hard work to write a book. I can’t tell you how many times I really get going on an idea, then my quill breaks. Or I spill ink all over my writing tunic.” ― Ellen DeGeneres

17) “Writing isn’t about making money, getting famous, getting dates, getting laid, or making friends. In the end, it’s about enriching the lives of those who will read your work, and enriching your own life, as well. It’s about getting up, getting well, and getting over. Getting happy, okay? Getting happy.” ― Stephen King

18) “Easy reading is damn hard writing.” ― Nathaniel Hawthorne

19) “Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout with 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

20) “Writing is like sex. First you do it for love, then you do it for your friends, and then you do it for money.” — Virginia Woolf

21) “I would advise anyone who aspires to a writing career that before developing his talent he would be wise to develop a thick hide.” — Harper Lee

22) “You don’t actually have to write anything until you’ve thought it out. This is an enormous relief, and you can sit there searching for the point at which the story becomes a toboggan and starts to slide.” — Marie de Nervaud

23) “Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now.” — Annie Dillard

24) “I tell my students there is such a thing as ‘writer’s block,’ and they should respect it. You shouldn’t write through it. It’s blocked because it ought to be blocked, because you haven’t got it right now.” — Toni Morrison

25) “I could write an entertaining novel about rejection slips, but I fear it would be overly long.” — Louise Brown

26) “I just sit at my typewriter and curse a bit.” — P.G. Wodehouse

27) “The best time for planning a book is while you’re doing the dishes.” — Agatha Christie

28) “It’s such a confidence trick, writing a novel. The main person you have to trick into confidence is yourself. This is hard to do alone.” — Zadie Smith

29)  “Close the door. Write with no one looking over your shoulder. Don’t try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say. It’s the one and only thing you have to offer.” — Barbara Kingsolver

30) “You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.” — Jack London

31) “A good book isn’t written, it’s rewritten.” — Phyllis A. Whitney

32) “If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it. Or, if proper usage gets in the way, it may have to go. I can’t allow what we learned in English composition to disrupt the sound and rhythm of the narrative.” — Elmore Leonard

33) “Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.” — Anton Chekhov

34) “Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: Do not use semicolons. All they do is show you’ve been to college.” – Kurt Vonnegut
35) “If I had to give young writers advice, I would say don’t listen to writers talking about writing or themselves.”
—Lillian Hellman