14 Powerful Quotes To Inspire Your Writing You can make anything by writing. C. S. Lewis WATCH: Quotes From Authors On The Inspiration And Agony Of Writing Previous Next 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 In my writing, as much as I could, I tried to find the good, and praise it. Alex Haley A well-written life is almost as rare as a well-spent one. Thomas Carlyle There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are. W. Somerset Maugham Writing is nothing more than a guided dream. Jorge Luis Borges Writing is the only thing that, when I do it, I don't feel I should be doing something else. Gloria Steinem Writers are not here to conform. We are here to challenge. We're not here to be comfortable—we're here, really, to shake things up. That's our job. Jeanette Winterson Every writer I know has trouble writing. Joseph Heller To write something you have to risk making a fool of yourself. Anne Rice Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers. Isaac Asimov If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, you must be the one to write it. Toni Morrison I can shake off everything as I write; my sorrows disappear, my courage is reborn. Anne Frank If I waited for perfection, I would never write a word. Margaret Atwood