On Writing Quotes

The best quotes by the author we have brought to you

“A boy who once wiped his ass with poison ivy probably doesn’t belong in a smart people’s club.” (On Writing Quotes)
Stephen King
On Writing

“Almost everyone can remember losing his or her virginity, and most writers can remember the first book he/she put down thinking: I can do better than this. Hell, I am doing better than this! What could be more encouraging to the struggling writer than to realize his/her work is unquestionably better than that of someone who actually got paid for his/her stuff?”
Stephen King
On Writing

“Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.”
Stephen King
On Writing

“Books are a uniquely portable magic.”
Stephen King
On Writing

“Description begins in the writer’s imagination, but should finish in the reader’s.”
Stephen King
On Writing

“Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me three times, shame on both of us.”
Stephen King
On Writing

“Good description is a learned skill, one of the prime reasons why you cannot succeed unless you read a lot and write a lot. It’s not just a question of how-to, you see; it’s also a question of how much to. Reading will help you answer how much, and only reams of writing will help you with the how. You can learn only by doing.”
Stephen King
On Writing

“I think the best stories always end up being about the people rather than the event, which is to say character-driven.”
Stephen King
On Writing

“If you expect to succeed as a writer, rudeness should be the second-to-least of your concerns. The least of all should be polite society and what it expects. If you intend to write as truthfully as you can, your days as a member of polite society are numbered, anyway.”
Stephen King
On Writing

“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.”
Stephen King
On Writing

“If you’re just starting out as a writer, you could do worse than strip your television’s electric plug-wire, wrap a spike around it, and then stick it back into the wall. See what blows, and how far. Just an idea.”
Stephen King
On Writing

“I’m a slow reader, but I usually get through seventy or eighty books a year, most fiction. I don’t read in order to study the craft; I read because I like to read”
Stephen King
On Writing

“In many cases when a reader puts a story aside because it ‘got boring,’ the boredom arose because the writer grew enchanted with his powers of description and lost sight of his priority, which is to keep the ball rolling.”
Stephen King
On Writing

“It starts with this: put your desk in the corner, and every time you sit down there to write, remind yourself why it isn’t in the middle of the room. Life isn’t a support system for art. It’s the other way around.”
Stephen King
On Writing

“Just remember that Dumbo didn’t need the feather; the magic was in him. ”
Stephen King
On Writing

“Kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart, kill your darlings.”
Stephen King
On Writing

“Let me say it again: You must not come lightly to the blank page.”
Stephen King
On Writing

“Let’s get one thing clear right now, shall we? There is no Idea Dump, no Story Central, no Island of the Buried Bestsellers; good story ideas seem to come quite literally from nowhere, sailing at you right out of the empty sky: two previously unrelated ideas come together and make something new under the sun. Your job isn’t to find these ideas but to recognize them when they show up.”
Stephen King
On Writing

“One of the really bad things you can do to your writing is to dress up the vocabulary, looking for long words because you’re maybe a little bit ashamed of your short ones. This is like dressing up a household pet in evening clothes. The pet is embarrassed and the person who committed this act of premeditated cuteness should be even more embarrassed.”
Stephen King
On Writing

“Reading at meals is considered rude in polite society, but if you expect to succeed as a writer, rudeness should be the second-to-least of your concerns. The least of all should be polite society and what it expects.”
Stephen King
On Writing

“Reading in bed can be heaven, assuming you can get just the right amount of light on the page and aren’t prone to spilling your coffee or cognac on the sheets. ”
Stephen King
On Writing

“Sometimes you have to go on when you don’t feel like it, and sometimes you’re doing good work when it feels like all you’re managing is to shovel shit from a sitting position.”
Stephen King
On Writing

“Talent renders the whole idea of rehearsal meaningless; when you find something at which you are talented, you do it (whatever it is) until your fingers bleed or your eyes are ready to fall out of your head. Even when no one is listening (or reading or watching), every outing is a bravura performance, because you as the creator are happy. Perhaps even ecstatic.”
Stephen King
On Writing

“The road to hell is paved with adverbs.”
Stephen King
On Writing

“The scariest moment is always just before you start. After that, things can only get better.”
Stephen King
On Writing

“When you write a book, you spend day after day scanning and identifying the trees. When you’re done, you have to step back and look at the forest.”
Stephen King
On Writing

“Words create sentences; sentences create paragraphs; sometimes paragraphs quicken and begin to breathe.”
Stephen King
On Writing

“Write with the door closed, rewrite with the door open.”
Stephen King
On Writing

“Writing is a lonely job. Having someone who believes in you makes a lot if difference. They don’t have to makes speeches. Just believing is usually enough.”
Stephen King
On Writing

“Writing is not life, but I think that sometimes it can be a way back to life.”
Stephen King
On Writing

“Writing is seduction. Good talk is part of seduction. If not so, why do so many couples who start the evening at dinner wind up in bed?”
Stephen King
On Writing

“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…this book…is a permission slip: you can, you should, and if you’re brave enough to start, you will. Writing is magic, as much the water of life as any other creative art. The water is free. So drink. Drink and be filled up.”
Stephen King
On Writing