I love reading quotes on writing by writers. They’re not
only experts on the subject matter, but they also tend to express things well.
Sometimes, though, they are just so very sure of themselves,
able to make sweeping generalizations about everyone everywhere who adopts the
title of “writer.” And often, there’s another writer who thinks the exact opposite.
Here are a few contradictory bits of advice I’ve found recently.
On How Much You
Should Enjoy Writing:
“Only amateurs say that they write for their own amusement.
Writing is not an amusing occupation. It is a combination of ditch-digging,
mountain-climbing, treadmill and childbirth... But amusing? Never.”
— Edna Ferber
“Do you suffer when you write? I don't at all…I never feel
as good as while writing.”
― Ernest Hemingway
“Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a
long bout with some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if
one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor
understand.”
― George Orwell
“I learned that you should feel when writing, not like Lord
Byron on a mountain top, but like child stringing beads in kindergarten, -
happy, absorbed and quietly putting one bead on after another.”
— Brenda Ueland
