Samuel Johnson, 1709-1784

1. Samuel Johnson, 1709-1784 Composition is, for the most part, an act of slow diligence to which the mind is dragged by necessity or resolution.

2. Winston Churchill, 1874-1965 History will be kind to me – for I intend to write it.

3. Isaac Bashevis Singer, 1904-91 The wastepaper basket is the writer's best friend.

4. Dorothy Parker, 1893-1967 This is not a book that should be tossed lightly aside. It should be hurled with great force.

5. Ursula K. Le Guin, 1929- 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.

6. Louise Brooks, 1906-85 Writing is 1 percent inspiration, and 99 percent elimination.

7. Friedrich Nietzsche, 1844-1900 My ambition is to say in ten sentences what everyone else says in an entire book.

8. Elmore Leonard,1925- My most important piece of advice to all you would-be writers: when you write, try to leave out all the parts readers skip.

9. Gloria Steinem, 1934- Writing is the only thing that, when I do it, I don't feel I should be doing something else.

10. Truman Capote, 1924-84 I believe more in the scissors than I do in the pencil.

11. Blaise Pascal, 1623-62 I have made this letter longer, because I have not had the time to make it shorter.

12. Toni Morrison, 1931- If there is a book you really want to read but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.

13. Lord Acton, 1834-1902 Learn as much by writing as by reading.

14. Moses Hadas, 1900-1966 Thank you for sending me your book. I shall waste no time reading it.

15. Robert Heinlein, 1907-88 Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards.

16. Flannery O’Connor, 1925-64 Everywhere I go, I'm asked if the universities stifle writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them.

17. Jack London, 1876-1916 You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.

18. Madeleine L’Engle, 1918- Inspiration usually comes during work, rather than before it.

19. Wilson Mizner, 1876-1933 When you take stuff from one writer, it's plagiarism. But when you take it from many writers, it's research.

20. Thomas Mann, 1875-1955 A writer is a person for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.

21. Kingsley Amis, 1922-95 If you can't annoy somebody, there's little point in writing.

22. Walter Bagehot, 1826-1877 The reason so few good books are written is that so few people who can write know anything.

23. Robert Frost, 1874-1963 No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader.

24. Richard Peck Writing is communication, not self-expression. Nobody in this world wants to read your diary except your mother.

25. Jessamyn West, 1902-84 Writing is so difficult that I feel that writers, having had their hell on earth, will escape all punishment hereafter.

26. Benjamin Franklin, 1706-90 Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.

27. Samuel Johnson, 1709-1784 The two most engaging powers of an author are, to make new things familiar, and familiar things new.

28. Susan Sontag, 1933-2004 Reading, the love of reading, is what makes you dream of becoming a writer.

29. Oscar Wilde, 1854-1900 I was working on the proof of one of my poems all the morning, and took out a comma. In the afternoon I put it back again.

30. Isaac Asimov, 1920-92 If the doctor told me I had six minutes to live, I'd type a little faster.

31. Ezra Pound, 1885-1972 Literature is news that STAYS news.

32. Agatha Christie, 1890-1976 I've always believed in writing without a collaborator, because where two people are writing the same book, each believes he gets all the worry and only half the royalties.

33. Cyril Connolly, 1903-74 Literature is the art of writing something that will be read twice; journalism what will be grasped at once.

34. Albert Camus, 1913-60 Bad authors write with respect to an inner context that the reader cannot know.

35. Molière, 1622-1673 I always do the first line well, but I have trouble doing the others.

36. Katherine Anne Porter, 1890-1980 Most people won’t realize that writing is a craft. You have to take your apprenticeship in it like anything else.

37. John Steinbeck, 1902-68 The profession of book writing makes horse racing seem like a solid, stable business.

38. Alexander Pope, 1688-1744 True ease in writing comes from art, not chance, As those move easiest who have learned to dance.

39. Don Marquis, 1878-1937 i never think at all when i write – nobody can do two things at the same time and do them both well.

40. E. M. Forster, 1879-1970 How do I know what I think until I see what I say?

41. Anais Nin, 1903-77 We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospection.

42. Mark Twain, 1835-1910 Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn’t.

43. Pliny the Younger, 61-105 A.D. There is nothing to write about, you say. Well then, write and let me know just this – that there is nothing to write about.

44. Rebecca West, 1892-1983 Journalism – an ability to meet the challenge of filling the space.

45. Samuel Johnson, 1709-1784 Your manuscript is both good and original, but the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good.

46. Lillian Hellman, 1905-1984 If I had to give young writers advice, I would say don’t listen to writers talking about writing or themselves.

47. Raymond Chandler, 1870-1959 When in doubt, have a man come through the door with a gun in his hand.

48. Ernest Hemingway, 1899-1961 The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shock-proof s**t detector.

49. Richard Brinsley Sheridan, 1751-1816 Easy writing makes curst hard reading.

50. W. Somerset Maugham, 1874-1965 Writing is the supreme solace.