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Now we know why some writers drink!

December 23, 2023May 9, 2025 308

There is a stereotype out there about writers. They’re talented and frustrated and hit the bottle way too often. Maybe the reason some talented writers are frustrated and drink to excess is because of what they’re asked to write. Example:

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

Christopher Hampton

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

Edward Albee

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

Michael Burke

You can always edit a bad page. You can’t edit a blank page.

Jodi Picoult

If you wait for inspiration to write, you’re not a writer. You’re a waiter.

Dan Poynter

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

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

M. K. Simmons

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

William Goldman

Books aren’t written, they’re rewritten. Including your own. It is one of the hardest things to accept, especially after the seventh rewrite hasn’t quite done it.

Michael Crichton

Socially, a journalist fits in somewhere between a whore and a bartender. But spiritually he stands beside Galileo. He knows the world is round.

Sherman Reilly Duffy

Just don’t be boring!

Robert Liebmann

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

Thomas Jefferson

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

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

E. B. White

The character that lasts is an ordinary guy with some extraordinary qualities.

Raymond Chandler

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 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

Stories are never too long or too short. They’re too interesting or too boring.

William Shawn

Work on a computer that is disconnected from the Internet.

Zadie Smith

Keep a small can of WD-40 on your desk — away from any open flames — to remind yourself that if you don’t write daily, you will get rusty.