I usually try to post some writing quotation during NaNoWriMo (since I have a website where I collect quotations to draw from) So here are some I’ve gathered over the past year. Notes and further sourcing of the quotations can be found at the links.

I feel more alive when I’m writing than I do at any other time — except when I’m making love. Two things when you forget time, when nothing exists except the moment — the moment of the writing, the moment of love. That perfect concentration is bliss.

May Sarton (1912-1995) Belgian-American poet, novelist, memoirist
Interview (1983)

     “Why did you kill Maurice Lennox?” she asked reproachfully.
“He was the villain,” protested Anne. “He had to be punished.”
“I like him best of them all,” said unreasonable Diana.
“Well, he’s dead, and he’ll have to stay dead,” said Anne, rather resentfully. “If I had let him live he’d have gone on persecuting Averil and Perceval.”
“Yes — unless you had reformed him.”
“That wouldn’t have been romantic, and, besides, it would have made the story too long.”

Lucy Maud Montgomery (1874-1942) Canadian author
Anne of the Island, ch. 12 (1915)

Stories may well be lies, but they are good lies that say true things, and which can sometimes pay the rent.

Neil Gaiman (b. 1960) British fabulist
“Politics, Portugal and No Gumbo-Limbo Trees,” blog entry (17 Nov 2004)

Writing a book is like doing a huge jigsaw puzzle, unendurably slow at first, almost self-propelled at the end. Actually, it’s more like doing a puzzle from a box in which several puzzles have been mixed. Starting out, you can’t tell whether a piece belongs to the puzzle at hand, or one you’ve already done, or will do in ten years, or will never do.

James Richardson (b. 1950) American poet
“Vectors: 56 Aphorisms and Ten-second Essays,”
Michigan Quarterly Review, # 25 (Spring 1999)

But the problem is that bad writers tend to have the self-confidence, while the good ones tend to have self-doubt.

Charles Bukowski (1920-1994) German-American author, poet
“Charles Bukowski,” interview by Alden Mills, Arete (Jul/Aug 1989)

If the desire to write is not accompanied by actual writing, then the desire must be not to write.

Hugh Prather (1938-2010) American minister, writer, counselor
Notes to Myself (1970)

I made up my mind long ago to follow one cardinal rule in all my writing — to be clear. I have given up all thought of writing poetically or symbolically or experimentally, or in any of the other modes that might (if I were good enough) get me a Pulitzer prize. I would write merely clearly and in this way establish a warm relationship between myself and my readers, and the professional critics — Well, they can do whatever they wish.

Isaac Asimov (1920-1992) Russian-American author, polymath
Nemesis, “Author’s Note” (1989)

More books have resulted from somebody’s need to write than from anybody’s need to read.

Ashleigh Brilliant (b. 1933) Anglo-American writer, epigramist, cartoonist
Pot-Shots, #3273

Anybody who likes writing a book is an idiot. Because it’s impossible, it’s like having a homework assignment every stinking day until it’s done.

Lewis Black (b. 1948) American comedian
Interview by Amelie Gillette, The Onion A.V. Club (7 Jun 2006)

People think that you have these things called ideas and that writing is a matter of imposing them on the subject material, whereas it’s only in the writing that I discover what it is that I think.

Anthony Lane (b. 1962) British journalist, film critic
“A Writer’s Life,” interview by Will Cohu, The Telegraph (14 Dec 2003)

Because as writers we’ll do anything — organize the closet, clean the garage — to avoid writing.

Lynn Vincent (b. 1962) American author, journalist
In The New Yorker, “Lives of the Saints” (15 Oct 2012)

JERRY: Writing is also one of those things like … I’d rather fill in all the “o”s in the phone book. [Laughs]. You know what I mean? Anything is more fun than trying to write songs.

BOB: I’d rather be in the dentist’s chair. The blank page is the most frightening, most horrifying, the most toothy, snarling, god-awful thing I can imagine.

JERRY: Any excuse to not do it is good enough.

BOB: Man, look at those dishes mounting up. How can I work in this pigsty?

Jerry Garcia (1942-1995) American singer-songwriter and guitarist
Interview of Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir by Jon Sievert,
Guitar Player Magazine (20 May 1993)

Don’t ask a writer what he’s working on. It’s like asking someone with cancer about the progress of his disease.

Jay McInerney (b. 1955) American novelist, screenwriter, editor
Brightness Falls, ch. 1 (1985)

Broadly speaking, short words are best, and the old words, when short, are the best of all.

Winston Churchill (1874-1965) British statesman and author
The Times Literary Award luncheon, London (2 Nov 1949)

No one has ever written, painted, sculpted, modeled, built, or invented except literally to get out of hell.

Antonin Artaud (1896-1948) French playwright, actor, director
Van Gogh, the Man Suicided by Society [Le Suicidé de la Société] (1947)

Writing isn’t about making money, getting famous, getting dates, getting laid, or making friends. In the end, it’s about enriching the lives of those who will read your work, and enriching your own life, as well. It’s about getting up, getting well, and getting over. Getting happy, okay? Getting happy. […] Writing is magic, as much the water of life as any other creative art. The water is free. So drink. Drink and be filled up.

Stephen King (b. 1947) American author
On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (2001)

The most important things to remember about backstory are that (a) everyone has a history and (b) most of it isn’t very interesting. Stick to the parts that are, and don’t get carried away with the rest. Life stories are best received in bars, and only then an hour or so before closing time, and if you are buying.

Stephen King (b. 1947) American author
On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (2001)

Don’t get discouraged because there’s a lot of mechanical work to writing. There is, and you can’t get out of it. I rewrote the first part of A Farewell to Arms at least fifty times. You’ve got to work it over. The first draft of anything is shit.

Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) American writer
(Attributed)

So long as you write what you wish to write, that is all that matters; and whether it matters for ages or only for hours, nobody can say.

Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) English writer
“A Room of One’s Own,” ch. 6 (1929)