“Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout with some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.”
– George Orwell
Conversation
“I write the way women have babies. You don’t know it’s going to be like that. If you did, there’s no way you would go through with it.”
– Toni Morrison
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“Writing books is the closest men ever come to childbearing.”
– Norman Mailer
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“When I sit down at the desk I feel no better than someone who falls and breaks both legs in the middle of the traffic of the Place de l’Opéra.”
– Franz Kafka
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“When I write, I feel like an armless, legless man with a crayon in his mouth.”
– Kurt Vonnegut
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“I discard every page, rewrite it, and throw discarded sheets of conversation about the floor… From rubbing my forehead I have worn an enormous hole in it, which bleeds.”
– Elizabeth Bowen
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“A writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.”
– Thomas Mann
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“Few people can be as tortured by writing as I am.”
– Virginia Woolf
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/ Fin.
Reply with your best anti-inspirational writing quote and let's co-create the world's most depressing writing thread. 😹
Also, shout-out to for unearthing a few of these quotes.
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There’s an interesting assertion in 7 Secrets of the Prolific that all of these quotes are by grandiose people, and adopting a grandiose view of writing actually prevents one from becoming prolific.
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I don’t have a strong opinion on whether this is true, but certainly some of these quotes can be used as justification for procrastination.