Top 45 Good Writer Quotes

Surgeons are not technicians; they’re not mechanics. They’re artists. I see patterns where not many other people see patterns. …I think that’s what made me a good surgeon, and now, that’s what’s making me a good writer.

The most despised sector of Hollywood are the writers. A good writer is quickly promoted to a ‘concept man’ – and then a producer – because he’s too valuable to simply be a writer.

I’m not a very good writer, but I’m an excellent rewriter.

A good writer should be able to write comedic work that made you laugh, and scary stuff that made you scared, and fantasy or science fiction that imbued you with a sense of wonder, and mainstream journalism that gave you clear and concise information in a way that you wanted it.

Priyadarshan makes good films because he is a good writer.

The struggle to write with profundity of emotion and at the same time to live like a millionaire so exhausted F. Scott Fitzgerald that he was at last brought down to the point where he could no longer be both a good writer and a decent person.

It took me a while to affirm the fact that I’m actually a really good writer. I couldn’t even call myself a writer with a straight face because I didn’t take my gift seriously.

Margot Livesey, my dear friend, reads all the drafts of what I write, and I read hers. We have an intense working relationship. I’ve been really lucky to know her. She’s a great reader and teacher as well as an astonishingly good writer.

I thought I was a pretty good writer, but I didn’t have anything to write about. I wanted to go out in the world, have some adventures and then write about them.

I wasn’t a very good writer before college. I don’t think I was a very good reader.

It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer.

When it comes to writing characters, whether men or women, I think a good writer writes good characters. I know many men who, for years, have written strong, progressive women characters.

A good writer is always a people watcher.

I’m not a good writer, and I don’t care. Unfortunately, after I left college, I didn’t have time much for literature. I wish I did. Most of the time I read documents, and that’s not going to help your writing. But I’m a very logical writer, and you can’t get out of me. Once I’ve nailed you, you’re finished.

I want to be an honest man and a good writer.

What I always wanted to get seen as was as a good actor, when it was the acting I was doing. When I’m writing, I want to try to be seen as a good writer.

I want to become a very good writer.

I think writing and reading are completely synergistic; not necessarily in that one has to be a good reader to be a good writer or vice versa, but that they so inform each other.

A whole bunch of agents and editors looked at my stories, and they all said, in effect, ‘You’re a pretty good writer and you should probably get these published; when you grow up and write a novel, get in touch.’

Disney was not a good animator, he didn’t draw well at all, but he was always a great idea man, and a good writer.

You cannot teach creativity – how to become a good writer. But you can help a young writer discover within himself what kind of writer he would like to be.

When you combine something to say with the skill to say it properly, then you’ve got a good writer.

Why do I write? It’s not that I want people to think I am smart, or even that I am a good writer. I write because I want to end my loneliness.

Hemingway was a jerk. I mean he was really a great jerk. He was a good writer, and he did all sorts of things that I would never have the courage to do, but I don’t think I’d enjoy being in the same room with him. He’s not my kind of person.

I grew up with another pretty darn good writer: Glenn Frey of the Eagles. We were very good friends, and we kind of studied it together.

A good writer cannot avoid having social consciousness. I don’t mean this about small pieces of writing, but about a big book. If it’s a big book, there has to be more than one undertow.

I’m not a good writer. It takes me a long time to get there. I write and then rewrite and revise and do it over and over until I’m satisfied.

I never wanted to be a celebrity writer. I wanted to be a good writer. I’m still trying to be a good writer. That’s what gets me out of bed in the morning.

I felt like I was never going to be a great writer. I felt like I was going to be a good writer at best. I wanted to be great at something.

I had a great AP U.S. History teacher in Pittsburgh. We still exchange Christmas cards. She was the first teacher who said I was a good writer – and I’d never heard that before. And so I remember that, and I remember that level of loving the material and really loving writing about it.

To make anything successful, you need a good writer.

A good writer is basically a story teller, not a scholar or a redeemer of mankind.

I’m not a good photographer, not a good writer. I’m a pretty regular person whose insecurity is so pervasive that it makes me always feel vulnerable.

Admiration from my readers inspire me, and the only ‘formula’ I believe in towards making a good writer is: ‘to thine own self be true!’

My Girl Scout leader. She told me if I listened more and talked less, I could grow up to be a good writer. I thought that was interesting advice at age 12.

If you’re a good writer, you don’t have everybody shouting in every scene.

I don’t think I’m a particularly good writer, and I’m not terribly insightful.

I think I’m a good writer. I think I have my own voice, which is unique to everyone – everyone has their own voice; if they would just write from a vulnerable embarrassing place, it’s going to be universal, and it’s going to be entertaining. Because everyone is the same, and everyone is unique.

There’s a really nice moment in the life of a piece of writing where the writer starts to get a feeling of it outgrowing him – or he starts to see it having a life of its own that doesn’t have anything to do with his ego or his desire to ‘be a good writer.’

I feel like I’m a secondary artist, a kind of a conduit for the writer, and if it’s a good writer, then I have a great road map.

I’m such a coward that unless I get a good writer, I don’t want to make a picture.

I believe writers need to be chameleons, or like Meryl Streep, who can play all sorts of characters. A good writer should be able to cross gender lines and people of all social classes. So for me, writing from a male point of view would be a great challenge, that I would look forward to taking on.

Nowadays I’m not even sure if newspapers take into account whether a person is a good writer.

A good writer takes time to go in-depth into a subject and then comes out with a good script. Then it’s the job of the actor and director to improvise with it and make it even better.

There is no motivation higher than being a good writer.