A Showcase of Inspirational Writing Quotes

January 31st, 2011 Writing by Mike Owens with 4 Comments

History defines our future, our culture, and molds mediocre people into greater individuals. We admire peacemakers like Mother Theresa and warriors like Stonewall Jackson; we learn from their example and observe the consequences of their decisions. Inspiration and passion stir us to greatness, transforming lives and making history.

Writers require inspiration and passion, too. Who can writers look to for conventional wisdom and honest advice? What writers made their mark in history, giving us stories now considered literary masterpieces?

C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Victor Hugo, and others left a legacy for those following in their literary footsteps.

Here is what some of our most beloved authors say about the craft which chiseled their passion into our hearts and minds:

C.S. Lewis

Clive Staples Lewis (29 November 1898 – 22 November 1963), commonly referred to as C. S. Lewis, was an Irish author and scholar. Lewis is known for his work on medieval literature, Christian apologetics, literary criticism and fiction. He is best known today for his series, The Chronicles of Narnia.

You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.
You can make anything by writing.
Don’t use words too big for the subject. Don’t say ‘infinitely’ when you mean ‘very’; otherwise you’ll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite.
Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it.
A book worth reading only in childhood is not worth reading even then.
Has this world been so kind to you that you should leave with regret? There are better things ahead than any we leave behind.

Additional Resources: C.S. Lewis

J.R.R. Tolkien

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, CBE (3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was an English writer, poet, philologist, and university professor, best known as the author of the classic high fantasy works The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion.

I find it only too easy to write opening chapters–and at the moment the story is not unfolding. I squandered so much on the original ‘Hobbit’ (which was not meant to have a sequel) that it is difficult to find anything new in that world.
If you’re going to have a complicated story you must work to a map; otherwise you’ll never make a map of it afterwards.
You can only come to the morning through the shadows.
Little by little, one travels far.
Never laugh at live dragons.

Additional Resources: J.R.R. Tolkien

Victor Hugo

Victor-Marie Hugo (French pronunciation: [viktɔʁ maʁi yˈɡo]) (26 February 1802 – 22 May 1885) was a French poet, playwright, novelist, essayist, visual artist, statesman, human rights activist and exponent of the Romantic movement in France.

In France, Hugo’s literary fame comes first from his poetry but also rests upon his novels and his dramatic achievements. Among many volumes of poetry, Les Contemplations and La Légende des siècles stand particularly high in critical esteem, and Hugo is sometimes identified as the greatest French poet. Outside France, his best-known works are the novels Les Misérables and Notre-Dame de Paris (known in English also as The Hunchback of Notre-Dame).

If a writer wrote merely for his time, I would have to break my pen and throw it away.
An invasion of armies can be resisted, but not an idea whose time has come.
The quantity of civilization is measured by the quality of imagination.
Adversity makes men, and prosperity makes monsters.
Concision in style, precision in thought, decision in life.

Additional Resources: Victor Hugo

Mark Twain

Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), known by his pen name, Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist. He is noted for his novels Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), called “the Great American Novel,” and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Twain was popular, and his wit and satire earned praise from critics and peers. Upon his death he was lauded as the “greatest American humorist of his age”,and William Faulkner called Twain “the father of American literature.”

The time to begin writing an article is when you have finished it to your satisfaction. By that time you begin to clearly and logically perceive what it is that you really want to say.
You need not expect to get your book right the first time. Go to work and revamp or rewrite it. God only exhibits his thunder and lightning at intervals, and so they always command attention. These are God’s adjectives. You thunder and lightning too much; the reader ceases to get under the bed, by and by.
The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.
I notice that you use plain, simple language, short words and brief sentences. That is the way to write English – it is the modern way and the best way. Stick to it; don’t let fluff and flowers and verbosity creep in. When you catch an adjective, kill it. No, I don’t mean utterly, but kill most of them – then the rest will be valuable. They weaken when they are close together. They give strength when they are wide apart. An adjective habit, or a wordy, diffuse, flowery habit, once fastened upon a person, is as hard to get rid of as any other vice.The more you explain it, the more I don’t understand it.

Additional Resources: Mark Twain

George Eliot

Mary Anne (Mary Ann, Marian) Evans (22 November 1819 – 22 December 1880), better known by her pen name, George Eliot, was an English novelist, journalist and translator, and one of the leading writers of the Victorian era. She is the author of seven novels, including The Mill on the Floss, Silas Marner (1861), Middlemarch (1871–72), and Daniel Deronda (1876), most of them set in provincial England and well known for their realism and psychological insight.

The strongest principle of growth lies in the human choice.
All meanings, we know, depend on the key of interpretation.
Failure after long perseverance is much grander than never to have a striving good enough to be called a failure.
The finest language is mostly made up of simple unimposing words.
You have such strong words at command, that they make the smallest argument seem formidable.

Additional Resources: George Eliot

Share with Us

I’ve shared a few quotes that might inspire, goad, and benefit you. What writing quotes have you found helpful? Leave a comment to share inspiration with your fellow writers.

Tags: Inspiration, Quotes, Showcase, Writing Tips

Mike Owens

Mike Owens enjoys project management for WinePress Publishing. He works with authors to guide them through the publishing process, in which their fictional characters come to life and their non-fiction touches lives.

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elaine @ peace for the journey says:

January 31, 2011 at 3:44 pm

Loved all of these “quotables” but especially Twain’s take on adjectives. Guilty as charged!

Thanks for the inspiration.

peace~elaine

Barbara H. says:

January 31, 2011 at 8:10 pm

Love these! I just recently discovered this new favorite someone posted from The Elements of Style by William Strunk and E. B. White: “Writing is, for most, laborious and slow. The mind travels faster than the pen; consequently writing becomes a question of learning to make occasional wing shot, bringing down the bird of thought as it flashes by. A writer is a gunner, sometimes waiting in his blind for something to come in, sometimes roaming the countryside hoping to scare something up. Like other gunners, he must cultivate patience; he may have to work many covers to bring down on partridge.”