84 Why We Write Quotes

Following is our list of why we write quotations and slogans full of insightful wisdom and perspective about what is quotation.

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Famous Why We Write Quotes

We write because we believe the human spirit cannot be tamed and should not be trained. — Nikki Giovanni

We write from life and call it literature, and literature lives because we are in it. — F. Sionil José

The only reason to write is from love. - Stephen Sondheim

The only reason to write is from love. — Stephen Sondheim

I write to find out what I am thinking. I write to find out who I am. I write to understand things. — Julia Alvarez

We write by the light of every story we have ever read. — Richard Peck

You write to communicate to the hearts and minds of others what's burning inside you. — Sayings

writing is a labor of love and also an act of defiance, a way to light a candle in a gale wind. — Alice Childress

The purpose of writing is to inflate weak ideas, obscure pure reasoning, and inhibit clarity. With a little practice, writing can be an intimidating and impenetrable fog! — Bill Watterson

Writers write to influence their readers, their preachers, their auditors, but always, at bottom, to be more themselves. — Aldous Huxley

Writing is the geometry of the soul. — Plato

Write to be understood, speak to be heard, read to grow. — Lawrence Clark Powell

Write about what you know and care deeply about. When one puts one's self on paper - that is what is called good writing. — Joel Chandler Harris

We are writing stories with light and darkness, motion and colors. It is a language with its own vocabulary and unlimited possibilities for expressing our inner thoughts and feelings. — Vittorio Storaro

The purpose of a writer is to keep civilization from destroying itself. — Albert Camus

Writing is storytelling and all of us are authors, not just of words but of reality. You are the author of your life, so go out and live! Then never quit writing about it! — Ben Mikaelsen

Short Why We Write Quotes

Why We Write Image Quotes

Why we write quote There comes a point in your life when you need to stop reading other people's book and write your ow
There comes a point in your life when you need to stop reading other people's book and write your own.

Why We Use Quotes

When so rich a harvest is before us, why do we not gather it? All is in our hands if we will but use it. — Elizabeth Ann Seton

Why use up the forests which were centuries in the making and the mines which required ages to lay down, if we can get the equivalent of forest and mineral products in the annual growth of the hemp fields? — Henry Ford

We often say God is never late, but generally He isn’t early either. Why? Because He uses times of waiting to stretch our faith in Him and to bring about change and growth in our lives. — Joyce Meyer

Why we write quote Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing about.
Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing about.

We do not ask for what useful purpose the birds do sing, for song is their pleasure since they were created for singing. Similarly, we ought not to ask why the human mind troubles to fathom the secrets of the heavens. — Johannes Kepler

Why do we perceive the world as stable and ourselves as local and unique? Here’s my guess: because it’s useful. — Max Tegmark

There must be a reason why some people can afford to live well. They must have worked for it. I only feel angry when I see waste. When I see people throwing away things we could use. — Mother Teresa

Why we write quote Until the lion learns to write, every story will glorify the hunter.
Until the lion learns to write, every story will glorify the hunter.

There must be a reason why some people can afford to live well. They must have worked for it. I only feel angry when I see waste. When I see people throwing away things that we could use. — Mother Theresa

People didn't always see a person with a disability who had to use a ramp or elevator as people who have been given unnecessary privileges. But I run into that often now. People are saying, 'Why do we have to go to great expense for these people?' — Major Owens

Why should we all use our creative power....? Because there is nothing that makes people so generous, joyful, lively, bold and compassionate, so indifferent to fighting and the accumulation of objects and money. — Brenda Ueland

There is absolutely nothing wrong with the responsible use of marijuana by adults and it should be of no interest or concern to the government. They have no business knowing whether we smoke or why we smoke. — Keith Stroup

What Is Quotation Quotes

Your life is a gift from the Creator. Your gift back to the Creator is what you do with your life. — Billy Mills

My God, what a clumsy olla putrida James Joyce is! Nothing but old fags and cabbage stumps of quotations from the Bible and the rest, stewed in the juice of deliberate, journalistic dirty-mindedness—what old and hard-worked staleness, masquerading as the all-new! — D. H. Lawrence

Joy is that kind of happiness that does not depend on what happens. — David Steindl-Rast

Why we write quote Write hard and clear about what hurts.
Write hard and clear about what hurts.

I am now to offer some thoughts upon that sameness or familiarity which we frequently find between passages in different authors without quotation. This may be one of three things either what is called Plagiarism, or Imitation, or Coincidence. — James Boswell

Life cannot be captured in a few axioms. And that is just what I keep trying to do. But it won't work, for life is full of endless nuances and cannot be captured in just a few formulae. — Etty Hillesum

You know what my favourite quotation is?.. It's from Chaucer... Criseyde says it, "I am myne owene woman, wel at ese." — Mary McCarthy

Why we write quote Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers.
Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers.

What seems distinctively modern as a unit of thought, of art, of discourse is the fragment; and the quotation is one kind of fragment. — Susan Sontag

Do not shun this maxim because it is common-place. On the contrary, take the closest heed of what observant men, who would probably like to show originality, are yet constrained to repeat. Therein lies the marrow of the wisdom of the world. — Arthur Helps

I was the type who looked at discussions of What Is Truth only with a view toward correcting the manuscript. If you were to quote "I am that I am," for example, I thought that the fundamental problem was where to put the comma, inside the quotation marks or outside. — Umberto Eco

To be amused at what you read - that is the great spring of quotation. — Charles Edward Montague

People Writing About Why We Write

Name Quotes Likes
Read quotes by Nikki Giovanni

Nikki Giovanni
quotes on love, education and life

181 1280
Read quotes by F. Sionil José

F. Sionil José

23 131
Read quotes by Stephen Sondheim

Stephen Sondheim
quotes on musical atre, life and love

192 611
Read quotes by Julia Alvarez

Julia Alvarez

28 756
Read quotes by Richard Peck

Richard Peck

28 120
Read quotes by Sayings

Sayings

6895 535

More Why We Write Quotes

Whenever I’m asked why Southern writers particularly have a penchant for writing about freaks, I say it is because we are still able to recognize one. — Flannery O'Connor

I've never known a writer who didn't feel ill at ease in the world. We all feel unhoused in some sense. That's part of why we write. We feel we don't fit in, that this world is not our world, that though we may move in it, we're not of it. You don't need to write a novel if you feel at home in the world. — Andrea Barrett

And that's why books are never going to die. It's impossible. It's the only time we really go into the mind of a stranger, and we find our common humanity doing this. So the book doesn't only belong to the writer, it belongs to the reader as well, and then together you make it what it is. — Paul Auster

You have an absolute freedom in Mexican writing today in which you dont necessarily have to deal with the Mexican identity. You know why? Because we have an identity... We know who we are. We know what it means to be a Mexican. — Carlos Fuentes

Stories have to be told or they die, and when they die, we can't remember who we are or why we're here. — Sue Monk Kidd

When we see the human race, we must see before all else environment and food. Historians write about social change without taking these factors into account. This is why it is difficult for them to see the reasons decline and prosperity in society. — Michio Kushi

Crime stories are our version of sitting round a camp fire and telling tales. We enjoy being scared under safe circumstances. That's why there's no tradition of crime writing in countries that have wars. — Camilla Lackberg

I'm more interested in interpersonal relationships - between lovers families, siblings. That's why I write about how we treat each other. — Terry McMillan

Why write if this too easy activity of pushing a pen across paper is not given a certain bullfighting risk and we do not approach dangerous, agile and two-horned topics? — Jose Ortega y Gasset

I write because it is while I'm writing that I feel most connected to why we're here. I write because silence is a heavy weight to carry. I write to remember. I write to heal. I write to let the air in. I write as a practice of listening. — Andrea Gibson

Write every day. Don't ever stop. If you are unpublished, enjoy the act of writing—and if you are published, keep enjoying the act of writing. Don't become self-satisfied, don't stop moving ahead, growing, making it new. The stakes are high. Why else would we write? — Rick Bass

A writer is congenitally unable to tell the truth and that is why we call what he writes fiction. — William Faulkner

Did you hear that we're writing Iraq's new Constitution? Why not just give them ours? We're not using it anymore. — Jay Leno

Why do they put pictures of criminals up in the Post Office? What are we supposed to do, write to them? Why don't they just put their pictures on the postage stamps so the postmen can look for them while they deliver the mail? — Steven Wright

We all know the old expression, "I'll work my thoughts out on paper." There's something about the pen that focuses the brain in a way that nothing else does. That is why we must have more writing in the schools, more writing in all subjects, not just in English classes. — David McCullough

I don't know why, but I always feel a kind of necessity to write things that are beyond acceptance, that are too offensive or something. For people to read them and say, Ha-ha-ha, very funny. No, we can't print that. — Terry Southern

The imagination can be dangerous. It can change the world. And that is why we write. — Meg Rosoff

We are a species that needs and wants to understand who we are. Sheep lice do not seem to share this longing, which is one reason why they write so little. — Anne Lamott

When you look into the eyes of your people out there that came to see you, that's when it's like, 'Yep, this is what it's all about.' This is why we don't sleep, and this is why we write songs and try to be the best. This moment right here onstage. — Luke Bryan

We all have a lot of people inside us, yet we get to live only one life. Fiction lets us slip into someone else’s skin, so to speak. That’s why we read novels, and also why we write them - to experience more life, through imagination. — Steven Saylor

Language is political. That's why you and me, my Brother and Sister, that's why we supposed to choke our natural self into the weird, lying, barbarous, unreal, white speech and writing habits that the schools lay down like holy law. — June Jordan

On our earth, before writing was invented, before the printing press was invented, poetry flourished. That is why we know that poetry is like bread; it should be shared by all, by scholars and by peasants, by all our vast, incredible, extraordinary family of humanity. — Pablo Neruda

You wind up creating from silence, like painting a picture on a blank canvas that could bring tears to somebody's eyes. As songwriters, our blank canvas is silence. Then we write a song from an idea that can change somebody's life. Songwriting is the closest thing to magic that we could ever experience. That's why I love songwriting. — Rodney Atkins

My challenge is to make sure the things I say and the things I do remain consistent for as often and as long as possible. My why is to inspire people to do the things that inspire them so that together we can change our world. That's why I wake up every single day. I'm agnostic to the form it takes: I teach, I write, I speak, I advise. — Simon Sinek

Life is filled with potential that is truly unfathomable. At last we are coming to see the enormous power it possesses. That is why we must never write anyone off. In particular, we mustn’t put boundaries on our own potential. In most cases, our so-called limitations are nothing more than our own decision to limit ourselves. — Daisaku Ikeda

Why haven't we fixed sick yet? You scientists there-- put down those starfish and HELP us. I hereby demand that all the people who are good at math make the world free of illness. The rest of us will write you epic poems and staple them together into a booklet. — Daniel Handler

I'm always trying to challenge everyone to raise the game on the artistic level. We are supposed to be the best. Make sure we don't get complacent or comfortable, and always trying to push the limit on trying to write great songs. At the end of the day it's why we do what we do. — Michael W. Smith

We never like to miss an opportunity to make Jesus the Lord of our life. That's why I never like to have a service without giving an invitation or writing a book, without giving an invitation and presenting that truth. I believe this is the whole key to living your best life, living a fulfilled life or becoming a better you. — Joel Osteen

Why do I write? I write because I have to, because it is all I know, because it is my truth, because I am compelled, because I am driven to make the world acknowledge that women like me exist, and we possess a dangerous wisdom. — Patrick Califia

I do not know what you are supposed to do with memories likes these. It feels wrong to want to forget. Perhaps this is why we write these things down, so we can move on. — Lloyd Jones

I started out really young, when I was four, five, six, writing poems, before I could play an instrument. I was writing about things when I was eight or 10 years old that I hadn't lived long enough to experience. That's why I also believe in reincarnation, that we were put here with ideas to pass around. — Willie Nelson

We leaned on family, church, school, friends and sports. That's basically all we had. All those things really shaped my life and shaped me musically. It's why I write the way I do. — Kenny Chesney

I talk about it a lot to my students. Musicality never came up in any of own writing education, and I can see why - we don't have the vocabulary for it. Phrasing is intuitive, and its difficult to articulate when it's on and when it's not. — Paul Lisicky

I think we can question whether degrees are antediluvian. Online learning has flexibility. Why not master courses in energy, writing, communications, and engineering and get a credential? — Anant Agarwal

I like Quentin Tarantino, especially the early films, but I'm a big fan of Billy Wilder and Preston Sturges... you know, people were writing great dialogue back then. It's as if people only have the memory of the last 15 years. So, before Tarantino no one was writing witty dialogue? That's ridiculous. Why do we have to keep referring to Tarantino? — John Michael McDonagh

Why did Ted Geisel end up writing and illustrating for young minds? He has specific imagery in the book, and we never would have moved beyond the discussion phase, if we couldn't have found an expression for The Lorax, dimensionally, that was true to the soul of what comes through in his simple line drawings, on the page. — Christopher Meledandri

Rian Johnson's 'Looper' is inventive, entertaining, and thought-provoking in every way a movie can be. It is in fact the kind of movie that reminds us why we watch them and make them, a beautifully told story that deserves to be not only remembered, but acknowledged for its writing. — Jason Reitman

Language is political. That's why you and me, my Brother and Sister, that's why we supposed to choke our natural self into the weird, lying, barbarous, unreal, white speech and writing habits that the schools lay down like holy law. Because, in other words, the powerful don't play; they mean to keep that power, and those who are the powerless (you and me) better shape up --mimic/ape/suck --in the very image of the powerful, or the powerful will destroy you --you and our children. — June Jordan

Why my interest in writers? Well, I'm one, and many of my friends are writers. I know what it's like to write. I'm interested in the creative process. I'm fascinated by the disparity between who we are on the outside, and what we have bubbling away inside us. — Eric Brown

We write for the same reason that we walk, talk, climb mountains or swim the oceans - because we can. We have some impulse within us that makes us want to explain ourselves to other human beings. That's why we paint, that's why we dare to love someone - because we have the impulse to explain who we are. — Maya Angelou

Everybody that writes has their own area of inquiry. And mine has always been kind of, why is it that when life can be so hard and difficult, we compound it by self-sabotage, doing terrible things? That's always been my main area of inquiry, and it does lead you to dark places. — Irvine Welsh

I would like to meet with Drake. I would love to meet him. He's from the city I'm from. I feel we share the same interests and I'm really just into his music and him as a person in general. He's great at what he does. I would want to meet Eminem. He was my first ever influence. The reason why I even started writing was because my mom bought me my first Eminem CD and I was glued from there. — D-Pryde

We had an ancient Russian acting coach at my drama school who said the worst offense you could commit was to let your subtext show. That is the point of acting, is to be saying one thing and not be allowed by society or your predicament to show what you're really feeling. In a way, I think that's why the therapy generation has killed script writing, because all you ever get is people going, "Hi, I'm feeling really angry right now." — Olivia Williams

We started out with a lot of bands in the same generation as ours, and there are very few left. Mainly, I think people get into it for the wrong reasons. They either want fame or the girls. I think music has to be a fun experience, but it also needs to be in your blood. I firmly believe I was born to write beautiful music, and that's what I do, and that's why I don't do anything else, because I have no interest and no passion for it. — Sune Rose Wagner

I felt that we started to go through the motions. Our hearts weren't there. Because we were always working on the band, and it became more about selling records than about writing and being passionate. That's why I ultimately lost interest. I don't want to speak for everybody, but I personally started to lose interest because we were doing it for the wrong reasons. It became monotony and it just wasn't fun anymore. Yeah, an obligation. — Jeremy Enigk

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