Inspiration Station: 25 Amazing Quotes on Writing ~ Bleeding Ink

Every once in a while, I enjoying trolling the Internet to find some writing quotes that provide me with some inspiration. It could be after I had to fight to pull a research paper together, or when I find myself off-track when it comes to focusing on a particular story, or when I am just basically feeling blah and can't explain it. Mostly, though, I tend to go digging for quotes about writing when I am in need of a general pick-me-up to keep my energy high in the middle of a writing project. This is one of those times. So sit back and enjoy, and I hope you share some of your favorite writing quotes in the comments.

Pay attention to the sound of words. - Dave Wolverton

Characterization is an accident that flows out of action and dialogue. - Jack Woodford

I'm writing a book. I've got the page numbers done. - Stephen Wright

Exercise the writing muscle every day, even if it is only a letter, notes, a title list, a character sketch, a journal entry. Writers are like dancers, like athletes. Without that exercise, the muscles seize up. - Jane Yolen

Writing is thinking on paper. - William Zinsser

The story...must be a conflict, and specifically, a conflict between the forces of good and evil within a single person. - Maxwell Anderson

A writer never has a vacation. For a writer life consists of either writing or thinking about writing. - Eugene Ionesco

I try to create sympathy for my characters, then turn the monsters loose. - Stephen King

Close the door. Write with no one looking over your shoulder. Don't try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say. It's the one and only thing you have to offer. - Barbara Kingsolver

The unread story is not a story; it is little black marks on wood pulp. The reader, reading it, makes it live: a live thing, a story. - Ursula K. Le Guin

In the tale, in the telling, we are all one blood. Take the tale in your teeth, then, and bite till the blood runs, hoping it's not poison; and we will all come to the end together, and even to the beginning: living, as we do, in the middle. - Ursula K. Le Guin

You may be able to take a break from writing, but you won't be able to take a break from being a writer... - Stephen Leigh

We do not write because we want to; we write because we have to. - Somerset Maugham

No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. - George Moore

All writers are vain, selfish and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives lies a mystery. Writing a book is a long, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand. - George Orwell

The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas. - Linus Pauling

There's no such thing as writer's block. That was invented by people in California who couldn't write. - Terry Pratchett

The only reason for being a professional writer is that you just can't help it. - Leo Rosten

First, find out what your hero wants, then just follow him! - Ray Bradbury

I must write it all out, at any cost. Writing is thinking. It is more than living, for it is being conscious of living. - Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Put down everything that comes into your head and then you're a writer. But an author is one who can judge his own stuff's worth, without pity, and destroy most of it. - Colette

My task...is, by the power of the written word to make you hear, to make you feel - it is, before all, to make you see. That - and no more - and it is everything. - Joseph Conrad

A writer without interest or sympathy for the foibles of his fellow man is not conceivable as a writer. - Joseph Conrad

If you haven't got an idea, start a story anyway. You can always throw it away, and maybe by the time you get to the fourth page you will have an idea, and you'll only have to throw away the first three pages. - William Campbell Gault

Tell the readers a story! Because without a story, you are merely using words to prove you can string them together in logical sentences. - Anne McCaffrey

(If any of these quotes are falsely attributed, please let me know in the comments. I tried to get them all from reputable sites, but even they can be wrong from time to time.)