Be polite; write diplomatically; even in a declaration of war one observes the rules of politeness.
Otto von Bismarck

I used to write things for friends. There was this girl I had a crush on, and she had a teacher she didn't like at school. I had a real crush on her, so almost every day I would write her a little short story where she would kill him in a different way.
Stephen Colbert

You write about what you know.
Larry David

I find that most people know what a story is until they sit down to write one.
Flannery O'Connor

A poet can write about a man slaying a dragon, but not about a man pushing a button that releases a bomb.
W. H. Auden

Great nations write their autobiographies in three manuscripts - the book of their deeds, the book of their words and the book of their art.
John Ruskin

Love. Fall in love and stay in love. Write only what you love, and love what you write. The key word is love. You have to get up in the morning and write something you love, something to live for.
Ray Bradbury

Be careful that what you write does not offend anybody or cause problems within the company. The safest approach is to remove all useful information.
Scott Adams

For each letter received from a creditor, write fifty lines on an extraterrestrial subject and you will be saved.
Charles Baudelaire

Strangely, some songs you really don't want to write.
David Bowie

I think it all comes back to being very selfish as an artist. I mean, I really do just write and record what interests me and I do approach the stage shows in much the same way.
David Bowie

Beethoven can write music, thank God, but he can do nothing else on earth.
Ludwig van Beethoven

I write when I'm inspired, and I see to it that I'm inspired at nine o'clock every morning.
Peter De Vries

When I read it, I don't wince, which is all I ever ask for a book I write.
Norman Mailer

The difficulty of literature is not to write, but to write what you mean; not to affect your reader, but to affect him precisely as you wish.
Robert Louis Stevenson

I don't really have time to sit down and write. But when I think of a melody, I call up my answering machine and sing it, so I won't forget it.
Britney Spears

I knew I would read all kinds of books and try to get at what it is that makes good writers good. But I made no promises that I would write books a lot of people would like to read.
Carl Sandburg

I make it clear why I write as I do and why other poets write as they do. After hundreds of experiments I decided to go my own way in style and see what would happen.
Carl Sandburg

Ordering a man to write a poem is like commanding a pregnant woman to give birth to a red-headed child.
Carl Sandburg

There is a great discovery still to be made in literature, that of paying literary men by the quantity they do not write.
Thomas Carlyle