Inspiration for Writers

“If you are a writer you locate yourself behind a wall of silence and no matter what you are doing, driving a car or walking or doing housework you can still be writing, because you have that space.” -- Joyce Carol Oates

"I don't wait for moods. You accomplish nothing if you do that. Your mind must know it has got to get down to work." -- Pearl S. Buck

"Caress the detail, the divine detail." Vladimir Nabokov

"A writer lives, at least, in a state of astonishment. Beneath any feeling he has of the good or evil of the world lies a deeper one of wonder at it all. To transmit that feeling, he writes." -- William Sansom

"Nothing you write, if you hope to be any good, will ever come out as you first hoped." -- Lillian Helman

"Writing is an exploration. You start from nothing and learn as you go." -- E.L. Doctorow

"Use the right word and not its second cousin." -- Mark Twain

"To be clear is the first duty of a writer; to charm and to please are graces to be acquired later." -- Brander Matthews

"I write the first sentence and trust in God for the next." -- Laurence Sterne

"In composing, as a general rule, run your pen through every other word you have written; you have no idea what vigor it will give to your style." -- Sydney Smith

"Real writers are those who want to write, need to write, have to write." -- Robert Penn Warren

"Words have weight, sound and appearance; it is only by considering these that you can write a sentence that is good to look at and good to listen to." -- Somerset Maugham

"Inspiration is wonderful when it happens, but the writer must develop an approach for the rest of the time…The wait is simply too long." -- Leonard S. Bernstein

For writings tips and advice for writers, from writers, visit my Squidoo lens: “Tips for Writers, From Writers”.