January 4, 2021 at 3:00 PM

It’s a new year and, therefore, we want to help kick it off right with a collection of our favorite inspirational quotes on writing! We always start a new year with resolutions, but often it’s hard to stick with our goals. Certainly, that’s where we can come in 🙂

Above all, we hope these 50 Inspirational Quotes on Writing will keep you motivated and energized throughout 2021.

Inspirational Quotes on Writing: Imagination

1. “The ability of writers to imagine what is not the self, to familiarize the strange and mystify the familiar, is the test of their power.” – Toni Morrison

2. “Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.” – William Wordsworth

3. “The writer is an explorer. Every step is an advance into a new land.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

4. “I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see, and what it means. What I want and what I fear.” – Joan Didion

5. “They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream by night.” – Edgar Allan Poe

6. “The art of writing is the art of discovering what you believe.” – Gustav Flaubert

7. “I know nothing in the world that has as much power as a word. Sometimes I write one, and look at it, until it shines.” – Emily Dickinson

8. “That’s what you’re looking for as a writer when you’re working. You’re looking for your own freedom.” – Philip Roth

9. “Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine and at last you create what you will.” – George Bernard Shaw

10. “Creativity is a combination of discipline and childlike spirit.” – Robert Greene

11. “Writing is the painting of the voice.” – Voltaire

12. “It’s the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting.” – Paulo Coelho

13. “I have fallen in love with the imagination. And if you fall in love with the imagination, you understand that it is a free spirit. It will go anywhere and it can do anything.” – Alice Walker

Inspirational Quotes on Writing: Motivation

14. “Any writer worth his salt writes to please himself… it’s a self-exploratory operation that is endless.” – Harper Lee

15. “If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put foundations under them.” – Henry David Thoreau

16. “There are significant moments in everyone’s day that can make literature. That’s what you ought to write about.” – Raymond Carver

17. “Keep asking questions because people will always want to know the answer. Open with a question and don’t answer it until the end.” – Lee Child

18. “But when people say, did you always want to be a writer? I have to say no! I always was a write.” – Ursula K. Le Guin

19. “You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.” – Maya Angelou

20. “If I waited for perfection, I would never write a word.” – Margaret Atwood

21. “You should write stories because you love the shape of stories and sentences and the creation of different words on a page.” – Annie Proulx

22. “I write only because there is a voice within me that will not be stilled.” – Sylvia Plath

23. “If you do not hear music in your words, you have put too much thought into your writing and not enough heart.” – Terry Brooks

24. “If you are in difficulties with a book, try the element of surprise: attack it at an hour when it isn’t expecting it.” – H.G. Wells

25. “Words are sacred. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.” – Tom Stoppard

26. “The secret of it all is to write… without waiting for a fit time or place.” – Walt Whitman

27. “No one else sees the world the way you do, so no one else can tell the stories that you have to tell.” – Charles de Lint

28. “Successful writing is one part inspiration and two parts sheer stubbornness.” – Gillian Flynn

29. “I write books because I have always been fascinated by stories and language, and because I love thinking about what makes people tick.” – Lois Lowry

30. “As a writer, you should not judge. You should understand.” – Ernest Hemingway

31. “If you don’t see the book you want on the shelf, write it.” – Beverly Cleary

32. “When all else fails, write what your heart tells you. You can’t depend on your eyes, when your imagination is out of focus.” Mark Twain

33. “Stories are light. Light is precious in a world so dark. Begin at the beginning. Make some light.” – Kate DiCamillo

Inspirational Quotes on Writing: Process

34. “A writer is a writer not because she writes well and easily, because she has amazing talent, because everything she does is golden. In my view a writer is a writer because even when there is no hope, even when nothing you do shows any sign of promise, you keep writing anyway.” – Junot Diaz

35. “The first draft is you just telling yourself the story.” – Terry Pratchett

36. “Write a page a day. Only 300 words and in a year you have written a novel.” – Stephen King

37. “The secret of getting ahead is getting started.” – Agatha Christie

38. “The job of the novelist is to invent: to embroider, to color, to embellish, to make things up.” – Donna Tart

39. “Writing is an act of faith, not a grammar trick.” – E.B. White

40. “Good stories are not written. They are rewritten.” – Phyllis Whitney

41. “The first draft is a skeleton. Just bare bones. The rest of the story comes later with revising.” – Judy Bloom

42. “When you are describing a shape, or sound, or tint, don’t state the matter plainly, but put it in a hint. And learn to look at all things with a sort of mental squint.” – Lewis Carroll

43. “You may not write well every day, but you can always edit a bad page. You can’t edit a blank page.” – Jodi Picoult

44. “Perfection is finally attained not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away.” – Antoine de Saint-Exupery

45. “The secret to editing your work is simple: You need to become its reader instead of its writer.” – Zadie Smith

46. “I’m writing a first draft and reminding myself that I’m simply shoveling sand into a box so that later I can build castles.” – Shannon Hale

47. “Don’t labor over a little cameo work in which every word is to be perfect. Technique holds a reader from sentence to sentence, but only content will stay in his mind.” – Joyce Carol Oates

48. “If you fall in love with the vision and not your words, the rewriting will become easier.” – Nora DeLoach

49. “Be willing and unafraid to write badly, because often the bad stuff clears the way for good, or forms a base on which to build something better.” – Jennifer Egan

50. “Plot is no more than footprints left in the snow after your characters have run by on their way to incredible destinations.” – Ray Bradbury

To sum up, write it all down this year. After that, visit BNPress.com to become a published author! Importantly, we have plenty of tools to help new authors. From trusted partners to assist with editing, formatting, or design, to marketing and promotions. Each step of the way, we will be there to help.