Quotes About Writing

                     Make an impact on the audience

                     Addsa punch of humor

                     Builds credibility within your writing

Famous Writing Quotes

I love to use this quote about writing to emphasize the importance of checking your work carefully. I ask one student to read it out loud, and often the child will put the word "left" in before the word "any." We then can analyze the sentence to show how what we think we have written and what we read sometimes is not what is really there.

2. Every writer I know has trouble writing.
Joseph Heller

Great quotes about writing can be used to introduce brainstorming topics. They give students a reason to brainstorm a list and to help see its' value. This is also a good creative writing quote to use when needing to prod some children along in the rough draft stage.

3. Nothing stinks like a pile of unpublished writing.
Sylvia Plath

Students should always have opportunities to publish their writing and share it with an intended audience. Otherwise, who are they writing for? The teacher? Wow, that sure is motivating...real audience, real purpose, real writing. It's real simple.


4. The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.
Mark Twain

There are many quotes about writing, but this one is terrific for a lesson in descriptive writing. It also works well with visualizing what an author means. Before introducing the quote, tell your class you have two words to tell them, but you will only say the first one for right now. Ask your students to close their eyes and envision lightning. Have them describe it as thoroughly as they can. Then introduce the second word, "bug."

Discuss with your class how all of their descriptions before did not give an accurate picture of your two words. What authors do in their writing is look for the perfect word to help their audience visualize their descriptions in their minds.

As long as all the basic elements are there and proper form in the final copy is adhered to, who are we to stand in the way of creativity and the writing process?? Let the students develop their stories as they wish.

6. Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers.
Isaac Asimov

There is a good reason why teachers tell their students to keep writing, anything at all! Okay, some teachers just want a bit of peace for twenty or thirty minutes, but good teachers know that when students continue writing (even when they say they don't know what to write), then that is when a breakthrough can occur. The best topics may start to form.
When my students tell me they don't know what to write, I just gently say, "I'm surprised at you. We have worked so hard at training ourselves to write for 20 minutes without stopping. Are you really telling me that you have forgotten all of our hard work?" Then I walk away without waiting for a response. They need to learn to write without me telling them what to write, at least during the brainstorming period. There are times, though, that they need some help, but that is covered under Teaching Writing (coming soon).

7. Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.
Benjamin Franklin

As far as quotes about writing go, enough said with this one, don't you think?

Creative Writing Quotes

9. Everything in writing begins with language. Language begins with listening.
Jeanette Winterson

Great writing contains words, phrases and sentences that make us feel, imagine and get personally involved. How are students to acquire this knowledge if you do not provide it to them?

Good teachers know that their students need to listen to stories, poetry, narratives, non-fiction, and everything in between. Read to your students at a level above what their independent reading level is. They can comprehend what they hear even if they could not read it themselves. You will be enriching their vocabulary and they, in turn, will begin to use it in their writing.

10. Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.
Anton Chekhov

Of all the descriptive quotes on writing, this is my favorite. Creative writing quotes should make the audience feel something, and this one does. Primary students love this type of word play. Why not do a whole class guided writing lesson on descriptive phrases, then leave them posted for the students to use in their own writing?

Get creative with how you use them (that is a quality of a good teacher!), and most of all, enjoy your students' writing and the process of it.

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