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Now we know why some writers drink!

December 23, 2023June 4, 2026 1299

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:

Why Writers Drink

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

I do not over-intellectualize the production process. I try to keep it simple: Tell the damned story.

Tom Clancy

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

Thomas Jefferson

No writer has ever yet been known to hang himself as long as he had another chapter left.

Thomas Wolfe

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

Stan Lee

It is only natural to pattern yourself after someone. But you can’t just copy someone. If you like someone’s work, the important thing is to be exposed to everything that person has been exposed to.

Bob Dylan

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

Robert A. Heinlein

It is perfectly okay to write garbage — as long as you edit brilliantly.

C. J. Cherryh

Critics are people who sit on the mountaintop and look down on the battlefield. When the fighting is finished, they take it upon themselves to come down from the mountain and shoot the survivors.

Robert Altman

Biography should be written by an acute enemy.

Arthur Balfour

Every writer with half a brain knows to surround himself or herself with editors who are smarter, far more articulate and infinitely better looking.

Chris Claremont

I write the last line, and then I write the line before that. I find myself writing backwards for a while, until I have a solid sense of how that ending sounds and feels. You have to know what your voice sounds like at the end of the story, because it tells you how to sound when you begin.

John Irving

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

Anecdotes don’t make good stories. Generally, I dig down underneath them so far that the story that finally comes out is not what people thought their anecdotes were about.

Alice Munro

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

Lawrence Wray

You may be able to take a break from writing, but you won’t be able to take a break from being a writer.

Stephen Leigh

If my poetry aims to achieve anything, it’s to deliver people from the limited ways in which they see and feel.

Jim Morrison

The road to ignorance is paved with good editors.

George Bernard Shaw

Do not place a photograph of your favorite author on your desk, especially if the author is one of the famous ones who committed suicide.

Roddy Doyle

The first chapter sells the book; the last chapter sells the next book.