Allison > Allison's Quotes

“If you don't have time to read, you don't have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.”
― Stephen King

“Habit is habit, and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed down-stairs one step at a time.”
― Mark Twain

“All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.”
― Ernest Hemingway

“If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.”
― Stephen King

“The creative process requires more than reason. Most original thinking isn't even verbal. It requires 'a groping experimentation with ideas, governed by intuitive hunches and inspired by the unconscious.' The majority of business men are incapable of original thinking because they are unable to escape from the tyranny of reason. Their imaginations are blocked.”
― David Ogilvy, Confessions of an Advertising Man

“First, study the product you are going to advertise. The more you know about it, the more likely you are to come up with a big idea for selling it.”
― David Ogilvy, Ogilvy on Advertising

“Big ideas come from the unconscious. This is true in art, in science and in advertising. But your unconscious has to be well informed, or your idea will be irrelevant. Stuff your conscious mind with information, then unhook your rational thought process.”
― David Ogilvy, Ogilvy on Advertising

“As a writer, you should not judge, you should understand.”
― Ernest Hemingway

“You can never solve a problem on the level on which it was created.”
― Albert Einstein

“Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine and at last you create what you will.”
― George Bernard Shaw

“All great literature is one of two stories; a man goes on a journey or a stranger comes to town.”
― Leo Tolstoy

“If you wish to be a writer, write.”
― Epictetus

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”
― Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”
― Ernest Hemingway

“The first draft of anything is shit.”
― Ernest Hemingway

“Writing is utter solitude, the descent into the cold abyss of oneself.”
― Franz Kafka

“Write with the door closed, rewrite with the door open.”
― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

“Your intuition knows what to write, so get out of the way.”
― Ray Bradbury

“My books are water; those of the great geniuses is wine. Everybody drinks water.”
― Mark Twain, Notebook

“There's no such thing as perfect writing, just like there's no such thing as perfect despair.”
― Haruki Murakami, Hear the Wind Sing

“Writing is magic, as much the water of life as any other creative art. The water is free. So drink. Drink and be filled up.”
― Stephen King

“Without music, life would be a mistake.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols

“Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

“Both Rowling and Meyer, they’re speaking directly to young people. … The real difference is that Jo Rowling is a terrific writer and Stephenie Meyer can’t write worth a darn. She’s not very good.”
― Stephen King

“Write hard and clear about what hurts.”
― Ernest Hemingway

“I write for the same reason I breathe - because if I didn't, I would die.”
― Isaac Asimov

“In order to write about life first you must live it.”
― Ernest Hemingway

“Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life's coming attractions.”
― Albert Einstein

“The purpose of a storyteller is not to tell you how to think, but to give you questions to think upon.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Way of Kings