- “Writers end up writing stories—or rather, stories' shadows—and they're grateful if they can, but it is not enough. Nothing the writer can do is ever enough” —Joy Williams
- “I want to live other lives. I've never quite believed that one chance is all I get. Writing is my way of making other chances.” —Anne Tyler
- “Writing is a performance, like singing an aria or dancing a jig” —Stephen Greenblatt
- “All good writing is swimming under water and holding your breath.” —F. Scott Fitzgerald
- “Good writing is always about things that are important to you, things that are scary to you, things that eat you up.” —John Edgar Wideman
- “In certain ways writing is a form of prayer.” —Denise Levertov
- “Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia.” —E.L. Doctorow
- “Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” —E.L. Doctorow
- “Let's face it, writing is hell.” —William Styron
- “A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.” —Thomas Mann
- “Writing is 90 percent procrastination: reading magazines, eating cereal out of the box, watching infomercials.” —Paul Rudnick
- “Writing is a failure. Writing is not only useless, it's spoiled paper.” —Padget Powell
- “Writing is very hard work and knowing what you're doing the whole time.” —Shelby Foote
- “I think all writing is a disease. You can't stop it.” —William Carlos Williams
- “Writing is like getting married. One should never commit oneself until one is amazed at one's luck.” —Iris Murdoch
- “The less conscious one is of being ‘a writer,’ the better the writing.” —Pico Iyer
- “Writing is…that oddest of anomalies: an intimate letter to a stranger.” —Pico Iyer
- “Writing is my dharma.” —Raja Rao
- “Writing is a combination of intangible creative fantasy and appallingly hard work.” —Anthony Powell
- “I think writing is, by definition, an optimistic act.” —Michael Cunningham
