10 Writer Quotes That Really Resonate With Me

I wanted to share with you some quotations about writing that really make my heart beat faster and my eyes fill up with tears because when I read them I think, ‘That’s it! That’s the truth! So I’m not the only one feeling all the pain of this writerly calling that I have, this passion for words that is so full of pain. At long last I feel understood.’

Here they are.

That is so true. Sometimes when no one else will listen (for instance when I’ve been talking about how much I love quotations that are written in wobbly blurry black writing) I bend over my piece of paper and I whisper things into its tiny little ears.

I was saying this the other day to Wilbur (Wilbur is my butler), I was saying Wilbur, you are so lucky to be able to just go on holiday two days a year and forget about all the rest. I just can’t. I can’t. Not. Work. It’s all work work work work and no play ever. It’s hell. And all these thoughts almost always involve thinking of a sepia picture of a typewriter. NO other way to survive. Absolutely NO WAY. Like even if I eat healthy good food all day and take walks and am rich and have no disease, there’s NO WAY NO WAY to survive if I don’t write. I just DIE for goodness’ sake, I DIE every single FLIPPING TIME. I’m so happy someone’s finally voicing this survival impossibility thing.

OH GOD don’t you hate it when you’re writing in your dreams and someone removes the pen you’re holding in reality which is the pen you’re writing with in your dreams? It completely ruins everything you’re writing in your dreams and your dream book doesn’t get written. Then you’re late on your dream deadline and your dream editor gets so furious! I had to pay back a whole dream advance like that last time because the boyfriend had removed my pen from my hand (‘It was going to stain your pyjamas’ SURE). Such a shame you don’t ever get a dream pen and all this dream writing is conditional on your holding a real pen THANK YOU UNCONSCIOUS.

I think he doesn’t mean really bleeding, I think it’s a metaphor of some kind, but it’s so true because when you write it hurts so much it really feels exactly like someone’s cut your veins open and all the blood is gushing out. It really hurts physically like that. It does. But it’s nothing at the same time, nothing. We endure it, we have to.  Seriously, it’s nothing. Don’t worry. It’s nothing. Ouch… o the pain.

That really strikes a chord with me. I know people who are not writers and it must be strange not to feel desperate all the time. It’s funny to think that we’re the ones who have this burden, this calling, this thing in us that makes us so desperate… Why us? I hope it stops one day because there’s so much despair, but at the same time I don’t want it to stop because I wouldn’t be a writer anymore… Oh I just don’t know.

I like the definition of courage that’s implied in there, because some people would say that courage is, like, jumping into a house on fire, or facing up to someone who’s a horrible racist and misogynist, or finally breaking up with a partner who emotionally manipulates you, but no one ever, ever mentions the courage that you need in those moments when you have to write in a way that scares you a little.

YESSS!!! I mean, YESSSS!!! The sheer number of people I meet who will just tell you offhandedly, ‘Writers’ idea notebooks aren’t important to them’. It’s extraordinary, it’s like you can’t have a normal conversation with anyone without them bringing up that topic. And the effort it takes to convince them otherwise! Next time I’ll just give them this picture and they’ll understand with the broken glass and fishnet wire that we mean it.

I hate those simultaneous yet contradictory delusions. They happen all the time, for instance if I’m tweeting ‘Difficult day with characterisation #amwriting’ and no one retweets or replies, and I think ‘Is that because 1) they don’t care 2) they haven’t seen the tweet 3) they never have this problem with characterisation 4) they’re scared of admitting they have the same problem 5)…’ At least this quote reminds me I’m not alone.

This one is my top number one favourite of all. I couldn’t agree more. Break-ups, deaths, illnesses, genocides, sun death – there are things out there that sound like they could cause agony of a kind or another. But to me, nothing, nothing can ever be equally agonising as the knowledge that I have a story in me that isn’t told. It’s the Platonic idea of agony; everything else is a replica.

I hope you’ve felt inspired too. I’m glad we’re all suffering together, though I still think I suffer a little more.