"For those who have tasted the profound activity of writing, reading is no more than a secondary pleasure."
De l' Amour (1822)

"To Oliver Goldsmith, A Poet, Naturalist, and Historian, who left scarcely any style of writing untouched, and touched none that he did not adorn."
Epitaph on Goldsmith (1728-74) by Samuel Johnson

"I wish thee as much pleasure in the reading, as I had in the writing."
Emblems (1635) 'To the Reader'

"There are two duties incumbent upon any man who enters on the business of writing: truth to the fact and a good spirit in the treatment."
Essays Literary and Critical (1923) 'Morality of the Profession of Letters'

"A famous writer who wants to continue writing has to be constantly defending himself against fame."
In Writers at Work (6th series, 1984)

"You write with ease, to show your breeding, But easy writing's vile hard reading."
'Clio's Protest' (written 771, published, 1819)

"That fairy kind of writing which depends only upon the force of imagination."
King Arthur (1691) dedication

"Fine writing is next to fine doing the top thing in the world."
Letter to J.H. Reynolds, 24 August 1819, in H.E. Rollins (ed) Letters of John Keats (1958) vol. 2

"God is love, but get it in writing"
Gypsy Rose Lee (Rose Louise Hovick) 1914-70, American Striptease Artist

"All good writing is swimming under water and holding your breath."
F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1896-1940, American Novelist

"If writing did not exist, what terrible depressions we should suffer from."
Sei Shonagon, c.966-c.1013, Japanese Diarist and Writer

"Many suffer from the incurable disease of writing, and it becomes chronic in their sick minds."
Juvenal, AD c.60-c.130

"If you can't annoy somebody with what you writing, I think there's little point in writing."
Kingsley Amis, 1922-95, English Novelist and Poet

"This manner of writing [prose] wherein knowing myself inferior to myself...I have the use, as I may account it, but of my left hand."
John Milton, 1608-74, English Poet

"It took me fifteen years to discover that I had no talent for writing, but I couldn't give it up because by that time I was too famous."
Robert Benchley, 1889-1945, American Humorist

"The biggest obstacle to professional writing is the necessity for changing a typewriter ribbon."
Robert Benchley, 1889-1945, American Humorist

"The only end of writing is to enable the readers better to enjoy life, or better to endure it."
Samuel Johnson, 1709-84, English Poet, Critic, and Lexicographer

"For me, writing---the only possible writing--- is just simply the conversion of nervous force into phrases."
Joseph Conrad (Teodor Josef Konrad Korzeniowski) 1857-1924, Polish-born English Novelist

"Eeyore was saying to himself, 'This writing business. Pencils and what-not. Over-rated, if you ask me. Silly stuff. Nothing in it."
A.A. Milne, 1882-1956, English Writer for Children

"I enjoyed talking to her, but thought nothing of her writing. I considered her 'a beautiful little knitter."
Edith Sitwell, 1887-1964, English Poet and Critic of Virginia Woolf

"True ease in writing comes from art, not chance, As those move easiest who have learned to dance, 'Tis not enough no harshness gives offence, The sound must see, an echo to the sense."
Alexander Pope, 1688-1744, English Poet

"Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man."
Francis Bacon, 1561-1626, English Lawyer, Courtier, Philosopher, and Essayist

"The great secret of Stendhal, his great shrewdness, consisted in writing at once...thought charged with emotion."
Andre Gide, 1869-1951, French novelist and Critic

"What's writing? A way of escape, like traveling to a war, or to see the Mau Mau. Escaping what? Boredom. Death."
Graham Greene, 1904-91, English Novelist

"Life is short and Art is long, indeed nearly impossible when one is writing in a language that is worn to the point of being threadbare, so wormeaten that it frays at every touch."
Gustave Flaubert, 1821-80, French Novelist

"Silence augmenteth grief, writing increaseth rage, Staled are my thoughts, which loved and lost, the wonder of our age."
Edward Dyer d. 1607, English Poet