Becoming a writer is about
becoming conscious. When you’re
conscious and writing from a place
of insight and simplicity and real
caring about the truth, you have
the ability to throw the lights on
for your reader. He or she will
recognize his or her life and truth
in what you say, in the pictures you
have painted, and this decreases
the terrible sense of isolation that
we have all had too much of.

―Anne Lamott

On writing, my advice
is the same to all.
If you want to be a writer, write.
Write and write and write.
If you stop, start again.
Save everything that you write.
If you feel blocked,
write through it until you feel
your creative juices flowing again.
Write.
Writing is what makes a writer,
nothing more and nothing less.

—Anne Rice

Because I am still a living
author, still at work,
I think of what I am
writing, very little of what
I have written.

—Wendell Berry

Those are the days you love.
The days when somebody has to
wake you up and tell you where
you are. But there are a lot of
days when you’re just slogging
along. And you’re very conscious
of your stuff and the typewriter is
a machine and the paper is blank.
You’ve got to be willing to
put in those days in order to get
to the days when it’s flowing
like magic.

—Kathleen Paterson

Let the writer take up surgery
or bricklaying if he is interested
in technique. There is no
mechanical way to get the
writing done, no shortcut. The
young writer would be a fool
to follow a theory. Teach
yourself by your own mistakes;
people learn only by error.

―William Faulkner

I’m glad to report that even now,
at this late day, a blank sheet of
paper holds the greatest
excitement there is for me—
more promising than a silver
cloud, prettier than a little
red wagon. It holds all the
hope there is, all fears. I can
remember, really quite distinctly,
looking a sheet of paper square
in the eyes when I was seven or
eight years old and thinking,
“This is where I belong,
this is it.”

—E.B. White

I have learned that once you
understand that meanings are
in people [readers], you actually
write better. If you want them
to understand something your
way, you have to tell them
exactly how it is. If you leave it
up to them,
they will see it their own way.

—Former student of mine