Welcome to our collection of inspiring creative writing quotes! Whether you’re an aspiring writer seeking motivation, a seasoned wordsmith in need of a creative boost, or simply someone who appreciates the art of crafting compelling narratives, you’ve come to the right place. Throughout history, writers from diverse backgrounds and genres have shared their insights, struggles, and triumphs through the power of words. These quotes encapsulate the essence of creativity, offering valuable pearls of wisdom that resonate with both novices and veterans in the world of writing.
From celebrated authors to lesser-known voices, the quotes gathered here span a spectrum of perspectives on the craft of writing. They delve into the intricacies of the creative process, the challenges of self-expression, and the joys of bringing imagination to life on the page. Whether you’re grappling with writer’s block, seeking validation for your literary endeavors, or simply seeking inspiration, these words are sure to ignite your passion for storytelling and ignite your creative spark. Without further ado, let the wisdom of these creative writing quotes illuminate your path as you embark on your own literary journey. Find the perfect quote to resonate with your soul, and let it guide you through the wondrous realm of writing possibilities.
In high school, I wanted to be an actress. Until I got to college and took some creative writing courses. Then I decided I wanted to become a novelist. Meg Cabot
A blend of fact and fiction has been used in various forms since the dawn of creative writing, starting with sagas and epic poems. Antony Beevor
The secret truth of ‘Celebrity Apprentice’ is that it isn’t very hard… ‘Celebrity Apprentice’ is easy like junior high is easy. All the arithmetic, the creative writing and the history are super simple, but like junior high, you do that easy work surrounded by people who are full-tilt, hormone-raging bug nutty. Penn Jillette
I never attended a creative writing class in my life. I have a horror of them; most writers groups moonlight as support groups for the kind of people who think that writing is therapeutic. Writing is the exact opposite of therapy. Zadie Smith
One must be an inventor to read well. There is then creative reading as well as creative writing. Ralph Waldo Emerson
In high school, I started training, singing with choirs, and getting voice lessons and doing a lot of creative writing and decided that that’s really what I wanted to pursue as a career, and that’s what I was going to study. Goapele
I’ve always written. When I was in school, the only teacher who ever liked me was my creative writing teacher. I used to enter poetry competitions, and I don’t think I ever lost one. So I had the idea for a while of being some kind of poet. Justin Townes Earle
I took a couple of creative writing classes with Joyce Carol Oates at Princeton University, and in my senior year there, I took a long fiction workshop with Toni Morrison. I fell in love with it. Mohsin Hamid
Some of my educated Filipino friends were aspiring poets, but their aspirations were all in the direction of the United States. They had no desire to learn from the bardic tradition that continued in the barrios. Their ideal would have been to write something that would get them to Iowa, where they would study creative writing. James Fenton
I seem most instinctively to believe in the human value of creative writing, whether in the form of verse or fiction, as a mode of truth-telling, self-expression and homage to the twin miracles of creation and consciousness. John Updike
In the world of the American creative writing workshop, I’ve encountered teachers who are tempted to place, or have actually placed, a moratorium on child narrators. Students love to write them, but children come laden with complications. Laura van den Berg
Like the child, the creative writing student is posited as a centre of vulnerable creativity, needful of attention and authority. Rachel Cusk
Creative writing programmes are not very necessary. They just exist so that people like us can make a living. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Poetry is something that happens in universities, in creative writing programs or in English departments. Mark Strand
I took an MA course in creative writing a couple of years back, and I was definitely in the bottom of the class. Allan Guthrie
I don’t think the creative writing industry has helped American poetry. Robert Morgan
I fell into playwriting accidentally, took some classes in it, and also took creative writing classes, but I really didn’t expect it to be a career because I didn’t believe there was a way to make money as a playwright without being lucky and I didn’t feel particularly lucky. Orson Scott Card
I didn’t do a masters in creative writing until I was 26, which is quite old, and then I found myself in New York and I needed money, so I started working full time as an editor. Rachel Kushner
I’ve always wanted to entertain people, and when I was in school, I was interested in creative writing, but wrestling was always there. When I ran into financial problems, I just figured when life gives you lemons, you have to make lemonade. AJ Lee
There is creative reading as well as creative writing. Ralph Waldo Emerson
By embracing a label such as ‘non-fiction,’ the creative writing community has signaled to the world that what goes on in this genre is at best utilitarian and at worst an utter mystery. We have segregated the genre from art. John D’Agata
I don’t think American poetry has gotten any better in the past 35 years. Oddly enough, creative writing programs seem to have been good for fiction, and I would not have predicted that. Robert Morgan
I had just begun an M.A. in Creative Writing, and I had to write a novel, so I began writing a novel that later became ‘A Life Apart.’ Neel Mukherjee
Creative writing lessons can be very useful, just like music lessons can be useful. To say, as Hanif Kureishi did, that 99.9% of students are talentless is cruel and wrong. I believe that certain writers like to believe they arrived into the world with special, unteachable powers because it is good for the ego. Matt Haig
Most of the best writing, the most creative writing, the most interesting, the most out-of-the-box kind of stuff, is being done on cable, you know, and on the computer. I mean, whatever it is, Amazon or Netflix or something. Because they’re just willing to take chances, you know, and there’s a market for it. Ed Harris
When I went to get my master’s in creative writing at San Francisco State after Grinnell, I joined the moribund remnants of the Actor’s Workshop, until I saw Kay Hayward and Sandy Archer in the San Francisco Mime Troupe and drove down that day to audition. The rest is history. Peter Coyote
Telling stories has been a compulsion of mine since I could physically say, ‘Once upon a time…’ But in high school, I realized I could study creative writing in college and actually pursue it as a viable career. Victoria Aveyard
Now that I’m staring down the barrel of the last act of my life, I’m less excited about control and solo effort, and I resent the way the business aspects interfere with my space for creative writing. David Knopfler
The move to creating stories was a natural progression for me, but the most pivotal time was probably in 6th grade: That year, a friend introduced me to the stories of Ray Bradbury, and a student teacher introduced me to creative writing. Lynn Flewelling
I teach a lot of graduate creative writing classes, and on the first day, I like to go around the room and ask everybody what’s the last book you’ve read that you really loved. And all of the women tend to give me chick lit titles. And to me, that’s sort of disappointing because it’s their only exposure to fiction somehow. Cristina Henriquez
I was never forced to write. At least, I was never forced or even encouraged to write fiction. Creative writing wasn’t in the curriculum at my school when I was in sixth grade. Rodman Philbrick
I knew I wanted to do something creative, and you don’t necessarily go to Harvard to do that. It’s not the best choice for creative writing. Gabrielle Zevin
I never took creative writing. Jesse Andrews
I flew into a small airport surrounded by cornfields and pastures, ready to carry out the two commands my father had written out for me the night before I left Calcutta: Spend two years studying creative writing at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, then come back home and marry the bridegroom he selected for me from our caste and class. Bharati Mukherjee
Favorite subject? I would have to say creative writing. Bindi Irwin
Actually, I’ve taught creative writing in Turkey, at an English language university, where the students were native Turkish speakers, but they were writing their essays in English, and they were very interesting – even the sense of structure, the conventions of writing, the different styles of writing. Elif Batuman
Given the devaluation of literature and of the study of foreign languages per se in the United States, as well as the preponderance of theory over text in graduate literature studies, creative writing programs keep literature courses populated. Marilyn Hacker
Growing up as a kid, I took creative writing classes, and I was always into poetry. Ivan Moody
I got out of college and I went to get my master’s in creative writing at San Francisco State. I was working as an actor at the Actor’s Workshop, being abused as a intern. Peter Coyote
When I applied for grad school, I did not specify genre. I said I wanted an MFA in Creative Writing. I was so cute and stupid! The admissions committee at Pitt decided to put me in poetry. Terrance Hayes
When I went to college I took a creative writing class and decided in a week to be a writer. David Guterson
I left the University of Chicago’s creative writing program for a tenure-track job at DePauw University in Indiana, then left DePauw in 2010 for Los Angeles. Nic Pizzolatto
I’d been in college studying English creative writing and history when I made the decision to join the Marines in the runup to the Iraq war. Phil Klay
If I were to go back to the Philippines, I would probably end up teaching creative writing at a university. I wouldn’t be able to write, for I would become too jaded to be able to view the existing situation objectively. Miguel Syjuco
I’m a fan of creative writing and telling stories. John Petrucci
I was an English major in college, took a ton of creative writing courses, and was a newspaper reporter for 10 years. Jennifer Weiner
For the last few years, I’ve enjoyed writing my own stuff since studying creative writing at school, and as I’ve grown up, I’ve realised how much I enjoy escaping into a world that I’ve created myself. So I’ve kept that up as a hobby. Himesh Patel
I really think that if there’s any one enemy to human creativity, especially creative writing, its self-consciousness. And if you have one eye on the mirror to see how you’re doing, you’re not doing it as well as you can. Don’t think about publishing, don’t think about editors, don’t think about marketplace. Andre Dubus III
I was in law school at the University of Kentucky and realized I didn’t really like law school, so I took a creative writing course for something different. Karen Robards
I loathe the trivialization of poetry that happens in creative writing classes. Teachers set exercises to stimulate subject matter: Write a poem about an imaginary landscape with real people in it. Write about a place your parents lived in before you were born. We have enough terrible poetry around without encouraging more of it. Donald Hall
From my years of teaching creative writing, I know that new writers take the setting for granted, as simply a place to set the action, but setting is a vital element in fiction writing and deserves serious treatment. Garry Disher
I worry that people think you have to go to a university to be a good writer, which is categorically untrue. I don’t think I learned how to write at Oxford. I did not go to any creative writing classes or anything. Samantha Shannon
Some creative writing programs seem evil, but my experience at Irvine was totally the opposite, where I feel like they were really good at focusing in on each writers voice and setting. When I felt like I was obligated to write a story that was more typical, no one really liked it. Aimee Bender
A surprising number of teens I meet in rougher schools around the country find refuge in novels and creative writing. It’s not always the usual suspects either, the high achievers. Matt de la Pena
I had never taken creative writing classes. Hadn’t even considered it. Charles Frazier
Creative writing and shooting are muscles that atrophy. But when you work them, you become a self-generator who can branch out. Eli Roth
A creative writing program is only as good as its teachers, and I was fortunate in having two great writers as mentors. Jay McInerney
I think the book that really kind of woke me up a little bit when I was starting to write was ‘Winesburg, Ohio’ by Sherwood Anderson. I was in grad school at Brown, going for an M.A. in creative writing. Those stories seemed to me to be doing away with pretty writing. Tom Drury
I majored in English with a specialization in creative writing along with Asian American Studies. Randall Park
I always got good grades in creative writing from elementary school on up. Keith Hernandez
I was always interested in creative writing growing up. From junior high on, I was writing short stories. I also grew up watching movies. My father would take me to everything. Most weeks, I could open the paper having seen every movie listed. Jeff Nichols
I’m often asked how I write books, but I don’t think my approach is suitable for everyone. If I walked into a creative writing class, all I could say to them was ‘I tend to make it up as I go along.’ I’m not sure that’s brilliant advice. Ian Rankin
As with many teens, my first jobs included babysitting and mopping floors at McDonald’s. Since then, I’ve held jobs a diverse as selling used cars, selling apparel, cosmetics, and real-estate, substitute-teaching six graders, teaching undergraduate creative writing, and working as an editorial assistant for a literary magazine. Therese Fowler
I’m a writer who stacks cat food for a living. It’s true: I have a master’s degree in creative writing, I’ve published two critically successful books, and I get paid to replenish the shelves of my local food co-op with pet food, sponges and toilet paper. Nine days out of 10, I do it quite happily. Ali Liebegott
The phenomenon of university creative writing programs doesn’t exist in France. The whole idea is regarded as a novelty, or an oddity. Marilyn Hacker
I was an A student and I liked creative writing. Trisha Yearwood
When I taught at the University of Houston in the Creative Writing program, we required the poets to take workshops in fiction writing, and we required the fiction writers to take workshops in poetry. Edward Hirsch
I played around with GarageBand before, but I’d never actually made a proper song. So it was getting into the studio with him where I made my first proper song. I’ve always loved creative writing, so I had done that as well. Benee
I studied writing at NYU. I graduated high school in Nashville and then went to the creative writing program, and in the first year, that’s when I wrote ‘Kids.’ Harmony Korine
In my own life I studied music, not creative writing; I see a novel as music – an opening as an overture, themes and subplots as lines in a fugue. The chance to write a novel about a musician boxed in by all kinds of limitations but who plays out his ultimate struggle for freedom at the piano was irresistible. Nicole Mones
I started creative writing classes at Aberdeen Central Library, and the writer-in-residence there, Todd McEwen, encouraged me a great deal. He showed my stories to his editor, and I thought that was just what happened to everyone who took his classes! Leila Aboulela
Linda Svendsen’s ‘Marine Life’ was important. I was nearly 22. Larry Mathews discussed the book in a creative writing class. We examined her stories, figured out how they worked. Michael Winter
I did not go to any creative writing workshop; I did not major in literature. If I can write, anyone can write. All it needs is imagination. Vikas Swarup
Most applicants to creative writing programs submit stories about the angst of their suburban childhoods. Eileen Pollack
I did a minor in creative writing in college, but I didn’t start writing until I stayed at home with my own children. Vanessa Diffenbaugh
In creative writing, I teach that characters arise out of our need for them. Marlon James
My first job was as a groundskeeper at the local ballpark in the town where I grew up. There was a lot of down time, and I got to drive tractor, so it was pretty good gig. I’ve also taught creative writing, dabbled in reviewing and journalism, and toiled as a screenwriter. Owen King
I minored in creative writing in college, and I’ve played with the idea of doing something more hybrid, but comics are my first love. Gene Luen Yang
My father’s father wrote for a Philadelphia newspaper and aspired to be a playwright. We had in our house a couple of crazy unproduced plays that he had written. For the one creative writing class I took in my life, I didn’t do any writing – I decided that I would plagiarize his terrible play to not fail the class. Stephen Gaghan
My favorite subject was English or creative writing. We did poems and making a magazine, and I did one on celebrities. I called it ‘Celebrity Life Magazine.’ I interviewed my good friend Kaley Cuoco. Ashley Tisdale
I’ve always been into creative writing. Ivan Moody
I am an English major in school with an emphasis in creative writing. I think hearing Maya Angelou speak at school last year was one of the best moments Stanford, at least, intellectually, had to offer. Fred Savage
I studied the short story as part of my creative writing course at university but then set off as a novelist. Generally, there is a sense that even if you want to write short stories, you need to do a novel first. Sarah Hall
I remember telling my creative writing teacher that you never want to have a journal, because if you lose it, then someone’s going to know all your secrets. And then she stopped using a journal, but I always write everything down… Anytime I travel, I try and fill up notepads. Garrett Hedlund
I wonder what it means about American literary culture and its transmission when I consider the number of American poets who earn their living teaching creative writing in universities. I’ve ended up doing that myself. Marilyn Hacker
I did a course in creative writing. Antara Mali
I’ve only ever taken a playwriting class, but I like creative writing and writing screenplays. Gia Coppola
I did go to UCLA for art, but the other option was going to Sarah Lawrence and doing creative writing all the way. So that is part of the reason I love to read so much. Emily Ratajkowski
I love puppies, and I love animals in general. Besides that, I do martial arts: extreme martial arts. I also play real guitar and drums, and sing. And I’m taking some college classes, hoping to major in English and creative writing. Cameron Monaghan
I did playwriting, creative writing, short story, novelization. Brook Lopez
My first semester, I got a D in creative writing. Conrad Hall
For decades, as literary editor, I have followed the growth of our creative writing in English. In my Solidaridad Bookshop, half of my stock consists of Filipino books written in English and in the native languages. F. Sionil Jose
The one thing emphasized in any creative writing course is ‘write what you know,’ and that automatically drives a wooden stake through the heart of imagination. If they really understood the mysterious process of creating fiction, they would say, ‘You can write about anything you can imagine.’ Tom Robbins
I went to school for creative writing in college, and I wound up about six hours short of my degree. Jason Isbell
Anyone who’s taken a lot of creative-writing classes, or taught creative writing, has learned to dread a certain kind of manuscript. It’s long, for one thing. It has irritatingly small type; it’s grammatically meticulous when it comes to everything but punctuation, for which it has developed its own system of Tolkienic elaboration. Tom Bissell
When I was at UCLA, a professor there encouraged me to write, and so I looked into specializing in creative writing in the English Department. And through that, I started writing plays. Randall Park
I don’t know much about creative writing programs. But they’re not telling the truth if they don’t teach, one, that writing is hard work, and, two, that you have to give up a great deal of life, your personal life, to be a writer. Doris Lessing
After finishing my undergraduate work at the University of Iowa, where I took creative writing classes taught by Writer’s Workshop students, I applied to half a dozen MFA writing programs. Andrew Shaffer
And after about two years, I realized that creative writing was not going to help you ace those biological tests. So I switched over to journalism. I didn’t graduate with honors, but I did graduate on time and with some doing. Bob Schieffer
I think you have to learn for yourself how to write. I’m slightly mystified by creative writing courses – God love them – because I can’t understand how you can explain a process that I find so baffling. Kate Atkinson
