I collect quotes. They take up less space than, say, action figures, and they’re free. I scrawl them in notebooks, write them out and put them up on the walls in my office. Here are some of my favorite quotes about writing:

1. “The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.” ~Sylvia Plath

2. “To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong.” ~Joseph Chilton Pearce

3. “I write to give myself strength. I write to be the characters that I am not. I write to explore all the things I’m afraid of.” ~Joss Whedon

 

4. “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

5. “The beautiful part of writing is that you don’t have to get it right the first time, unlike, say, a brain surgeon.” ~Robert Cormier

6. “The scariest moment is always just before you start.” ~Stephen King

 

7. “..with writers, there’s nothing wrong with melancholy. It’s an important color in writing.” ~Paul McCartney

8. “Start writing. No matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on.” ~Louis L’Amour

9. “Finish what you’re writing. Whatever you have to do to finish it, finish it.” ~Neil Gaiman

 

10. “Try to leave out the parts readers tend to skip.” ~Elmore Leonard

11. “There is a limited number of plots. There is no limit to the number of stories.” ~Ursula K. LeGuin

12. “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter, and bleed.” ~Ernest Hemingway

13. “Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.” ~Stephen King

14. “I’m just going to write because I cannot help it.” ~Charlotte Bronte

And, finally:

“If it sounds like writing, rewrite it.” ~Elmore Leonard