Because every
story begins
with words

Video: Why stories matter – 80 years of perspective

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.

Work on a computer that is disconnected from the Internet.

Zadie Smith

If you haven’t got an idea, start a story anyway. You can always throw it away, and maybe by the time you get to the fourth page you will have an idea, and you’ll only have to throw away the first three pages.

William C. Gault

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

A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.

G.K. Chesterton

What I loved most about calling myself a reporter was that it gave me an excuse to show up anyplace.

Jeanette Walls

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

Have something to say, and say it as clearly as you can. That is the only secret.

Matthew Arnold

Everybody walks past a thousand story ideas every day. The good writers are the ones who see five or six of them. Most people don’t see any.

Orson Scott Card

A writer without interest or sympathy for the foibles of his fellow man is not conceivable as a writer.

Joseph Conrad

Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards.

Robert A. Heinlein

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

Thank your readers and the critics who praise you, and then ignore them. Write for the most intelligent, wittiest, wisest audience in the universe: Write to please yourself.

Harlan Ellison

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

Edward Albee

No one can write decently who is distrustful of the reader’s intelligence or whose attitude is patronizing.

E. B. White

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

Stan Lee

If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all.

Oscar Wilde

I have a structured songwriting process. I start with the music and try to come up with musical ideas, then the melody, then the hook, and the lyrics come last.

John Legend

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

Thomas Jefferson

Don’t annoy an author, you’ll end up in their book and you won’t look good.

Lawrence Wray

Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamppost how it feels about dogs.

Christopher Hampton