There are 100,000 books about writing.
But only 50 pieces of advice that matter.
Here are the 50 most essential things ever said about writing:
“If people cannot write well, they cannot think well, and if they cannot think well, others will do their thinking for them.”
-George Orwell
“I want to be read.
I want to be valued.
That is perhaps the only shot at immortality a human being can have.”
-Anne Rice
“I admire anybody who has the guts to write anything at all.”
-E.B. White
“Don’t write at first for anyone but yourself.
It doesn’t matter how many or how few universities one goes to, what matters is what one learns, either at universities or by oneself.”
-T.S. Eliot
“I have written a great many stories and I still don't know how to go about it except to write it and take my chances.”
-John Steinbeck
“All you can control is the work.
Make the best thing you know how.
The world will do with it what it will.”
-Lin-Manuel Miranda
“Writing is thinking.
To write well is to think clearly.
That's why it's so hard.”
-David McCullough
“Nobody wants to read your shit.
Reduce your message to its simplest, clearest, easiest-to-understand form.”
-Steven Pressfield
“Hold the reader’s attention.
This is likely to work better if you can hold your own.”
-Margaret Atwood
“Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.”
-Kurt Vonnegut
“Self-discipline is enormously important.
You can't rely on inspiration or a novel would take ten years.”
-J.G. Ballard
“Whatever you’re meant to do, do it now.
The conditions are always impossible.”
-Doris Lessing
“Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.”
-Stephen King
“Don't wait for inspiration.
It comes while one is working.”
-Henri Matisse
“I wouldn't recommend writing. You can be a successful writer and never meet another soul.”
-J.G. Ballard
“There’s no trick to writing. If you like to write and want to write, you write, no matter where you are or what else you are doing or whether anyone pays any heed.”
-E.B. White
“Write it damn you, what else are you good for?”
-James Joyce
“Write, you bastard, write. Write desperately, frantically,
under pressure from yourself, while God still gives you
the time. Write until your eyes are glazed, until you have
writer's cramp, until you fall from your chair for weariness.”
-George Kennan
“If you have any young friends who aspire to become writers
the second greatest favor you can do them is to present them
with copies of The Elements of Style. The first greatest, of
course, is to shoot them now, while they're still happy.”
-Dorothy Parker
“When still a child, make sure you read a lot of books.
Spend more time doing this than anything else.
Work on a computer that is disconnected from the internet.”
-Zadie Smith
“Read a lot.
Write a lot.
Get to the point.
Cut down your text.
Be relatable and honest.
Don’t care too much what others may think.”
-Stephen King
“The point is sticking at it, not the talent.”
-Doris Lessing
“The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in shock-proof shit-detector.”
“Write truly, and having found what is true, project it in such a way that it becomes a part of the experience of the person who reads it.”
-Ernest Hemingway
“Write only when you have something to say.
Never take advice from anyone with no investment in the outcome.”
-David Hare
“Stop when you are going good.
Do that every day.”
“Ernest Hemingway
“Four basic premises of writing:
Clarity
Brevity
Simplicity
Humanity”
-William Zinsser
“I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can't see from the center.”
-Kurt Vonnegut
“I write to find what I have to say.
I edit to figure out how to say it right.”
-Cheryl Strayed
“My writing is a process of rewriting.”
-Joan Didion
“Write straight through to the end, without going back
Then read your work
Then rewrite it.”
-D.H. Lawrence
“You get ideas from daydreaming. You get ideas from being bored. You get ideas all the time. The only difference between writers and other people is we notice when we're doing it.”
-Neil Gaiman
“If someone gives you permission, they can take it away. I give myself permission.”
-Lucille Clifton
“Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.”
-Elmore Leonard
“To achieve style, begin by affecting none...
That is, place yourself in the background.”
-E.B. White
“Omit needless words.”
-William Strunk, Jr.
“Never use a long word if a short word will do.”
-Bertrand Russell
George Orwell:
“In every sentence that you write, ask yourself:
What am I trying to say?
What words will express it?
What image or idiom will make it clearer?
Is this image fresh enough to have an effect?
Could I put it more shortly?
Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly?”
-George Orwell
“Say what you are proposing to say, not merely come near it.
Use the right word, not its second cousin.
Employ a simple, straightforward style.”
-Mark Twain
“Do not use big words. The use of small words compels you to think about what you are writing. Even difficult ideas can be broken down into small words.
“Every day, for six months, practice writing in this way. Small words; short, clear, concrete sentences.”
-V.S. Naipaul
I was told, “It's going to take a long time, and you haven't got any money. Maybe it would be better if you could go to Europe.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because in Europe poverty is a misfortune, but in America it is shameful. Can stand the shame of being poor?”
-John Steinbeck
“Be submissive to everything, open, listening
Be in love with your life
Something that you feel will find its own form
Write in recollection and amazement for yourself
Write for the world to read and see your exact pictures of it”
-Jack Kerouc
“How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.”
-Henry David Thoreau
“Put things down without deliberation – without worrying about their style – without waiting for a fit time or place.
“Take the first scrap of paper, the first doorstep, the first desk, and write, write, write…at the instant the very heartbeat of life is caught.”
-Walt Whitman
“Put in your time (practice, practice, practice)
Good writing engages you, makes you think, and gives you a glimpse into someone else's head.”
-Malcolm Gladwell
“Write something.
Get the idea on the page.
Then, as the words accumulate, I start thinking about how they need to be organized.”
-Michael Lewis
“Spread ideas. Give things away. Write, share, and repeat.
Lower your expectations. The happiest authors are the ones that don't expect much.”
-Seth Godin
“Never demean yourself by talking back to a critic, never.”
-Truman Capote
That's it!
Those were 50 of the most essential things ever said about writing.
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