Logo - Feel The Words

Good Writer Quotes

On what it takes to become a good writer.

These quotes reflect on what makes a good writer, from a father's advice that becoming one simply takes practice, compared to learning to bull-ride, to the idea that a good writer should be able to write comedy, fear, and wonder alike. Readers can find more in our Book quotes.

My father told us all the time: to become a good writer takes writing. Because the more you do it, the better you get at it. It's like bull-riding. You can't do it once, you know. You've got to practice...

Quotes by Thomas Steinbeck

I allegedly am an outsider writer, so I write from the perspective of somebody who doesn't completely fit in. But at the same time, I can state the fact that I don't know of any good writer who is not...

Quotes by Rabih Alameddine

My inspiration for writing is all the wonderful books that I read as a child and that I still read. I think that for those of us who write, when we find a wonderful book written by someone else, we...

Quotes by Patricia MacLachlan

The struggle to write with profundity of emotion and at the same time to live like a millionaire so exhausted F. Scott Fitzgerald that he was at last brought down to the point where he could no longer be both...

Quotes by Nelson Algren

Able Quotes

A good writer should be able to write comedic work that made you laugh, and scary stuff that made you scared, and fantasy or science fiction that imbued you with a sense of wonder, and mainstream journalism that gave you...

Neil Gaiman

I believe writers need to be chameleons, or like Meryl Streep, who can play all sorts of characters. A good writer should be able to cross gender lines and people of all social classes. So for me, writing from a...

Quotes by Marisha Pessl

A good writer cannot avoid having social consciousness. I don't mean this about small pieces of writing, but about a big book. If it's a big book, there has to be more than one undertow.

Quotes by Marguerite Young

I didn't become a good writer until I learned how to rewrite. And I don't just mean fixing spelling and adding a comma. I rewrite each of my books five or six times, and each time I change huge portions...

Quotes by Louis Sachar

Any good writer is going to be well-received and is going to not be well-received; that's how you know you're a great writer.

Quotes by Karrine Steffans

Book Quotes

A good writer is always a people watcher.

Quotes by Judy Blume

A good writer is not, per se, a good book critic. No more so than a good drunk is automatically a good bartender.

Quotes by Jim Bishop

A good writer is basically a story teller, not a scholar or a redeemer of mankind.

Quotes by Isaac Bashevis Singer

I felt like I was never going to be a great writer. I felt like I was going to be a good writer at best. I wanted to be great at something.

Quotes by Gene Weingarten

A good writer can set a thriller anywhere and make it convincing: the trick is to evoke the setting in such a way that it highlights the crime or unsettles the reader.

Quotes by Garry Disher

Good Quotes

I think writing and reading are completely synergistic; not necessarily in that one has to be a good reader to be a good writer or vice versa, but that they so inform each other.

Quotes by Emma Walton Hamilton

Good writers define reality; bad ones merely restate it. A good writer turns fact into truth; a bad writer will, more often than not, accomplish the opposite.

Quotes by Edward Albee

If you are a good writer - and I think I am - you are able to handle any kind of group and imagine their lives.

Quotes by Earl Hamner, Jr.

I wasn't a very good writer before college. I don't think I was a very good reader.

Quotes by DeRay Mckesson

A good writer knows that if her style and perceptions are really cooking, she can bring anything off. It's okay, of course, for novelists to depict bland, average families living bland, average lives in bland, average towns. But it isn't...

Quotes by Darin Strauss

Great Quotes

My wife noticed that I wrote really good complaint letters about faulty products and that I could get anything I wanted out of these big corporations, and she said that I was a good writer and that I should go...

Quotes by Brian Herbert

Frequently Asked Questions

What do these good writer quotes cover?
They cover advice, craft, and the personal cost of writing well, drawn from writers reflecting on their own process.
Why do people search for good writer quotes?
Aspiring and working writers search for quotes on craft and encouragement, especially around what separates good writing from great writing.
What does the father's advice quote mean?
It passes down the idea that becoming a good writer takes sustained practice, comparing it to learning to bull-ride, something you can't master after just one attempt.
What does the Fitzgerald quote mean?
It describes how F. Scott Fitzgerald was worn down trying to write with real emotional depth while also trying to live an expensive, high lifestyle, eventually reaching a breaking point.
What does 'well-received and not well-received' mean?
It argues that receiving both praise and criticism is actually a sign of being a great writer, not a failure, since it means the work provokes a real reaction. See our Able quotes for related sayings.

Other entries acknowledge the toll writing can take, recalling how F. Scott Fitzgerald was worn down trying to write with emotional depth while living an expensive lifestyle. Explore our Great quotes for related thoughts on excellence.