We picked 31 quotes so you can have one for every day of the month!
Use them for NANOWRIMO (with one extra).
Let us know your favorite or if you have a good one in the comments below!
Getting Started
“The secret of getting ahead is getting started.” - Mark Twain
“Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds that you plant.” -Robert Louis Stevenson
“It’s the job that’s never started that takes the longest to finish.” -J.R.R. Tolkein
“Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.” -Vincent Van Gogh
"Writing is an exploration. You start from nothing and learn as you go.” -E.L. Doctorow
Failure and Perseverance
“Have no fear of perfection. You’ll never reach it.” -Salvador Dali
“You don’t start out writing good stuff. You start out writing crap and thinking it’s good stuff, and then gradually you get better at it. That’s why I say one of the most valuable traits is persistence.” -Octavia E. Butler
“A professional writer is an amateur who didn’t quit.” -Richard Bach
“Perseverance is a great element of success. If you knock long enough and loud enough at the gate, you are sure to wake up somebody.” -Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“Just don’t give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don’t think you can go wrong.” -Ella Fitzgerald
“The beautiful part of writing is that you don’t have to get it right the first time, unlike, say, a brain surgeon. You can always do it better, find the exact word, the apt phrase, the leaping simile.” -Robert Cormier
“Take chances, make mistakes. That’s how you grow. Pain nourishes your courage. You have to fail in order to practice being brave.” -Mary Tyler Moore
“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” -Samuel Beckett
“When in doubt, make a fool of yourself. There is a microscopically thin line between being brilliantly creative and acting like the most gigantic idiot on earth. So what the hell, leap.” -Cynthia Heimel
How to Write Well
“There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.” -W. Somerset Maugham
“I learned, when I look in the mirror and tell my story, that I should be myself and not peep whatever everybody is doing.” -Kendrick Lamar
“It is odd that we never question the feasibility of a football team practicing long hours for one game; yet in writing we rarely give ourselves the space for practice.” -Natalie Goldberg
“Revision is the heart of writing. Every page I do is done over seven or eight times.” -Patricia Reilly Giff
“Writing is like any other sort of sport. In order for you to get better at it, you have to exercise the muscle.” -Jason Reynolds
Why We Write
“A writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.” -Thomas Mann
“Writing means sharing. It’s part of the human condition to want to share things - thoughts, ideas, opinions.” -Paulo Coelho
“The art of writing is the art of discovering what you believe.” -Gustave Flaubert
“Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose or paint can manage to escape the madness, melancholia, the panic and fear which is inherent in a human situation.” -Graham Greene
“A word after a word after a word is power.” -Margaret Atwood
“No amount of money can replace the kind of happiness and satisfaction I derive out of writing.” -Sreenivasan
“Books and all forms of writing are terror to those who wish to suppress the truth.” -Wole Soyinka
“Writing is an extreme privilege but it’s also a gift. It’s a gift to yourself and it’s a gift of giving a story to someone.” -Amy Tan
“Who says that my dreams have to stay just my dreams?” -Ariel, The Little Mermaid
“Good writing will bring you to places you don’t even expect sometimes.” -James Gandolfini
“So that’s the dissenter’s hope: that they are writing not for today but for tomorrow.” -Ruth Bader Ginsburg
“You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.” -Ray Bradbury
Let us know your favorite writing quotes by commenting below!
