Writing Inspiration Quotes

“We get tattoos in the same spirit in which we write books. The crucial thing in both cases is to do it while you still have the nerve to say what’s true before it gets overlaid by other truths. Write books full of insight you know will vanish, that you know you’ll come to regret voicing even, before you become someone else, someone mellower or happier, more compromised or timid, someone who can no longer withstand the truths you have it in you now to express. Even if you eventually regard such truths as dangerous mistakes, they’ll have been your stepping stones to the knowledge of the future. Books and tattoo must be records of disappearing ideals.”
― Rob Doyle, Autobibliography

“If I knew where the good songs were, I’d go there more often. It’s a mysterious condition. It’s much like the life of a Catholic nun. You’re married to a mystery.”
― Leonard Cohen

“A writer must keep on writing - audience or no audience.”
― Avijeet Das

“Dogs asleep in the sun often whined and barked, but they were unable to tell what they saw that made them whine and bark. He had often wondered what it was. And that was all he was, a dog asleep in the sun. He would stand up, with open eyes, and he would struggle and toil and learn until, with eyes unblinded and tongue untied, he could share with her his visioned wealth. Other men had discovered the trick of expression, of making words obedient servitors, and making combinations of words mean more than the sum of their separate meanings. He was stirred profoundly by the passing glimpse at the secret, and he was again caught up in the vision of sunlit spaces and starry voids - until it came to him taht it was very quiet, and he saw Ruth regarding him with an amused expression and a smile in her eyes.”
― Jack London, Martin Eden

“Write to save yourself ... and someday you'll write because you've been saved.

You will feel terrible shame for this. Let your humility grow larger than your shame.”
― Anne Michaels, Fugitive Pieces

“als ik niet meer schreef, zou het leven anders zijn, het zou me niet meer interesseren om woorden te vinden die uitdrukken wat ik voel, het zou me zelfs niet meer interesseren om iets te begrijpen of te leren kennen, het leven zou dood zijn.”
― Françoise Sagan, Replieken

“Yo pienso que en esto radica el sentido de la creación literaria: en la descripción de objetos ordinarios tal y como quedarán reflejados en los espejos amables de los tiempos futuros; en encontrar en los objetos que nos rodean la ternura fragante que sólo la posteridad podrá discernir y apreciar en los lejanos tiempos venideros en los que cada minucia de nuestra aburrida vida cotidiana se convertirá en algo exquisito y festivo por derecho propio”
― Vladimir Nabokov, The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov

“i write
because

it were these
words

that brought
you and me
to each other.”
― Avijeet Das

“A writer observes. A writer records for posterity. The moments in the transience of the labyrinth of time that would go unrecorded otherwise! A writer records for value. A writer records for sentimentalism. A writer tries in earnest to carry the emotions and sentiments that make us what we ultimately are. For what are we? Empty spaces in an atom!”
― Avijeet Das

“Write the right words; not a lot of words. For every word that you ask your readers to read, they are giving you the gift of their attention. Make it count.”
― Donna Goddard, Writing: A Spiritual Voice

“All societies have their points of least resistance, their sore spots. Put your finger on the wound, and press down hard.”
― Michel Houellebecq, Rester vivant: et autres textes

“You've got to be a prose professional, get out of bed every morning and say, what is pressing on my nerves?

You've got to come out of your trap every morning life you are equal to your times.”
― Andrew O'Hagan

“Kafka, Tolstoy, Plath, Hemingway, Neruda, and Rilke are all masters of writing. They are history. Read the writings of the present generation poets & writers, before they become history!”
― Avijeet Das

“You are my moon
who I need
to bring me light.”
― Avijeet Das

“People chase whatever they feel passionate about. For me it has been poetry. And I realised why I have become a poet. It’s because I can feel the pain and love of people. I can feel the innermost feelings of people. The tenderness of hurt souls. And I want to heal the world by my words.”
― Avijeet Das

“Conversations happen quite often in life. As a writer and a poet, I like listening rather than talking. Somehow the conversations come out quite interesting. As a writer, I don't judge anyone. Because we are all humans and nobody can be totally perfect. In fact, perfect people do not make interesting characters in stories. And invariably I like to listen to the life stories and instances of the people whom I meet in life. Most people trust me and tell me their life stories. And the people I meet shape the characters and the stories that I write.”
― Avijeet Das

“Young love is about wanting to be happy. Old love is about wanting someone else to be happy”
― Mary Pipher

“Sometimes you search for a story. Sometimes you sniff for a story. Sometimes you listen for a story. And sometimes the story walks up to you and tells you itself.”
― Avijeet Das

“Sometimes you hunt for a story. Sometimes you search for a story. Sometimes you sniff for a story. Sometimes you listen for a story. And sometimes the story walks up to you and tells you itself.”
― Avijeet Das

“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.”
― Ann Lamott

“Great writing is music. It’s both painful and glorious. It melds words and phrases in such a way as to educate and inform while making you feel as if you’re part of a rare, deep, disruptive conversation. It hooks you, pushes you, and pulls you. It etches itself into your subconscious, maybe forever.”
― James Dowd, Write Dumb: Writing Better By Thinking Less

“Great writing connects emotionally. It lays obstacles and shows you the way over. It excites you, and incites you. It’s a skill, and an art form. It requires talent, experience, audacity, grit, and creativity. Even more, it requires empathy — the ability to feel and understand what someone else is feeling and experiencing. From habit to impulse and dedication to craving, if you can understand it, you can predict it. If you can predict it, you can provoke it. If you can make your readers feel something, they don’t need to think about anything, and that’s magical.”
― James Dowd, Write Dumb: Writing Better By Thinking Less

“You may say who am I to be a Writer, to put my heart and soul onto the page, to write my name on things, to have the gall to think I could stand alone with my words, to take chances, to try? I say, who the hell are you not to? This is a gift we all possess, an art we can practice without advanced instruction, a form of communication that can not only reach masses but also exist forever in time. Who are you to deny such a gift? You can write, and no one else is stopping you from being a Writer, only yourself. So don’t allow yourself to stand in the way of something so fulfilling.”
― James Dowd, Write Dumb: Writing Better By Thinking Less

“Go, be a writer, and use your words as weapons to change the way people live their lives, including your own.”
― James Dowd, Write Dumb: Writing Better By Thinking Less

“Somehow, they know exactly what to write, as if the words are flowing straight through them from somewhere else — somewhere magical, maybe.”
― James Dowd, Write Dumb: Writing Better By Thinking Less

“Consider that words are of the supernatural sort, other- worldly, yet not; gifted to us by some divine spirit, maybe; ever-changing, not ours, simply floating in us and around us, shaping our world and each other, but still shaped by our own innate, internal passions and energy — our blood!”
― James Dowd, Write Dumb: Writing Better By Thinking Less

“Consider the power of one word alone. A single magical word can not only change something’s meaning, it can convince someone to change how they think.”
― James Dowd, Write Dumb: Writing Better By Thinking Less

“A writer is a hunter, with the increase in the arousal instincts, there is a rise in sensitivity and selectivity for hunting stories.”
― Avijeet Das

“Writing makes sense when nothing else does. Our thoughts need an outlet, jettisoning off to some place. Could it be to a parallel universe or to outer space? Do aliens also write their thoughts in their diaries?”
― Avijeet Das

“Before you edit, Write
Before you write, Think
Before you quit, Try”
― Donald Ngonyo