quotes on writing

I just felt like sharing some of the fantastic quotes on writing that I've come across over the past few years. I've already shared a portion of my favorite quote of all time, from Diana Wynne Jones, but there are several others that have either made me laugh, nod my head in agreement, or gape in surprise at the idea that someone else in the world has been able to put my own feelings into far more eloquent words than I ever could.

“Don’t let the frustration get you down. We all go through the 'It’s a piece of shit' stage." Hallie Ephron

"What I had to face, the very bitter lesson that everyone who wants to write has got to learn, was that a thing may in itself be the finest piece of writing one has ever done, and yet have absolutely no place in the manuscript one hopes to publish." Thomas Wolfe

"My most important piece of advice to all you would-be writers: when you write, try to leave out all the parts readers skip." Elmore Leonard

"I put a piece of paper under my pillow, and when I could not sleep I wrote in the dark." Henry David Thoreau
(I definitely do this all the time...though my paper is next to my bed instead of under my pillow.)

"We don't write what we know. We write what we wonder about." Richard Peck

"Moving around is good for creativity: the next line of dialogue that you desperately need may well be waiting in the back of the refrigerator or half a mile along your favorite walk." Will Shetterly
(Also true for me, though my next line of dialogue is usually hiding in my shower.)

"Plot springs from character... I've always sort of believed that these people inside me- these characters- know who they are and what they're about and what happens, and they need me to help get it down on paper because they don't type." Anne Lamott
(Um, HELLO, I've also talked multiple times about the characters living in my head, and though I thought this was a somewhat strange notion, apparently Anne Lamott knows exactly what I'm talking about. Merry and Niko couldn't tell their own story, so I had to do it for them.)

"Often I'll find clues to where the story might go by figuring out where the characters would rather not go." Doug Lawson

“You have to write whichever book it is that wants to be written." Madeleine L'Engle

"I always stopped when I knew what was going to happen next. That way I could be sure of going on the next day." Ernest Hemingway
(I've started doing this is as well. That Hemingway really knew what he was talking about.)

"So this is always the key: you have to write the book you love, the book that's alive in your heart. That's the one you have to write." Lurleen McDaniel