Video: Why stories matter – 80 years of perspective

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Stories outlive us. How will anyone know your story if you don't write it down? That's a good reason to consider hiring a professional ghostwriter.

It’s an accepted fact that all writers are crazy; even the normal ones are weird.

William Goldman

The fact is, I don’t know where my ideas come from. Nor does any writer. The only real answer is to drink way too much coffee and buy yourself a desk that doesn’t collapse when you beat your head against it.

Douglas Adams

If you have an idea that you genuinely think is good, don’t let some idiot talk you out of it.

Stan Lee

Editor: A person employed by a newspaper, whose business it is to separate the wheat from the chaff, and to see that the chaff is printed.

Elbert Hubbard

If the sex scene doesn’t make you want to do it — whatever it is they’re doing — it hasn’t been written right.

Sloan Wilson

When writing a novel, that’s pretty much entirely what life turns into: “House burned down. Car stolen. Cat exploded. Did 1,500 easy words, so all in all it was a pretty good day.”

Neil Gaiman

Ever heard of a carpenter not going to work because he has “carpenter’s block”? If a writer can’t write, it’s because he doesn’t really want to, he isn’t ready to get it on paper or he’s just plain lazy.

Chet Cunningham

Good instincts usually tell you what to do long before your head has figured it out.

Michael Burke

No writer has ever yet been known to hang himself as long as he had another chapter left.

Thomas Wolfe

Easy reading is damn hard writing.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Reading and weeping opens the door to one’s heart, but writing and weeping opens the window to one’s soul.

M. K. Simmons

The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.

Thomas Jefferson

It begins with a character, usually, and once he stands up on his feet and begins to move, all I can do is trot along behind him with a paper and pencil, trying to keep up long enough to put down what he says and does.

William Faulkner

Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.

E. L. Doctorow

Work on a computer that is disconnected from the Internet.

Zadie Smith

I haven’t got 10 rules that guarantee success, though I promise I’d share them if I did. The truth is that I found success by stumbling off alone in a direction most people thought was a dead end, breaking all the 1990s shibboleths about children’s books in the process.

J.K. Rowling

The reason 99% of all stories written are not bought by editors is very simple. Editors never buy manuscripts that are left on the closet shelf at home.

John Campbell

You may be able to take a break from writing, but you won’t be able to take a break from being a writer.

Stephen Leigh

It is perfectly okay to write garbage — as long as you edit brilliantly.

C. J. Cherryh

Do you know what a playwright is? A playwright is someone who lets his guts hang out on the stage.