Inspirational and Writing Quotes

Here are some quotes about writing and storytelling I have discovered over time. These are ones that I have particularly enjoyed, or inspired me to tell my stories. Some of them are not directly related to writing, but they are included because of the guidance they provided to me.


A room without books is like a body without a soul.
-- Cicero

Writing is the original virtual reality.
-- Jim Butcher

Small wonder that spell means both a story told, and a formula of power over living men.
-- J.R.R. Tolkien

There is no role-playing in an online game that can match what happens in person.
-- Gary Gygax

Enough shovels of earth - a mountain. Enough pails of water - a river.
-- Chinese proverb

You miss 100% of the shots you don't take.
-- Wayne Gretzky

Paradoxically, when you write from the imagination you're writing what you know but from such a deep level of knowing that you don't know that you know it until it's revealed in your writing.
-- Emily Hanlon, Writer's Digest, December 2007

Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to chewed and digested.
-- Sir Francis Bacon

Writers writer; everyone else makes excuses.
-- Jack Bickham

Every 'no' means you're one step closer to a 'yes.'
-- Ali Eickholt (From a CSFWG Yahoo! Group posting.)

Writer: One who brings life to words and words to life.
-- Diane Fromme

Put the care into scare!
-- G.W. Thomas

All you need to do is write truly, and not care about what the fate of it is.
-- Ernest Hemingway

I have always imagined that paradise will be a kind of library.
-- Jorge Louis Borges

My mind is like a spin-dryer at full speed, my thoughts fly around my skull while millions of beautiful words cascade down in my lap.
--Christopher Nolan

Images gunfire across my consciousness and while trying to discipline them I jump in awe at the soul-filled bounty of my mind’s expanse.
--Christopher Nolan

Lots of people hear voices.
Some of them are called mad and are shut up in rooms
where they stare at the walls all day.
Some of them are called writers, and mostly they do the same thing.
--Margaret Chittenden

Imagination does not become great until a person, given the courage and strength, uses it to create. If this does not occur, the imagination addresses itself only to a spirit wandering in emptiness.
--Maria Montessori

I'd be in so much trouble without this revision thing.
-- Carrie Vaughn

For every revision there is an equal and opposite revision.
-- R. Michael Burns