As Henry David Thoreau reminded us, we cannot write “well or truly” unless we write with gusto. This page gathers the voices of writers who trusted the spark inside—those moments when a sentence arrives with clarity, when the world grows still, and the work asks you to follow it with honesty and truth. ✨

“We cannot write well or truly but what we write with gusto.” ~ Henry David Thoreau

The world we live in becomes increasingly politicized; our daily experience is shaped by public policy. A lot of fiction begins with a child's sense of: “Hey, that’s not fair.” ~ Deborah Eisenberg

All I'm doing is writing it down and putting it in a cadence. Once I find the rhythm, why stop? ~ Neil Young

I believe that writing is an account of the powers of extrication. ~ John Cheever

Writing free verse is like playing tennis with the net down. ~ Robert Frost

There is no better feeling than writing something that is a piece of you and knowing it will one day communicate with someone else. ~ Alanis Morissette

Writer’s block happens when you’re trying to be someone else. Accept who you are, and the writing returns. ~ Garrison Keillor

You can’t write poetry on the computer. ~ Quentin Tarantino

Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing. ~ Benjamin Franklin

I have written a great many stories and still don’t know how to go about it except to write and take my chances. ~ John Steinbeck

Successful writers are not the ones who write the best sentences... They are the ones who keep writing. ~ Bonnie Friedman

Those who write clearly have readers; those who write obscurely have commentators. ~ Albert Camus

I want the reader to turn the page and keep turning until the end. ~ Barbara Tuchman

The problem with fiction is that it must be plausible. Nonfiction has no such rule. ~ Tom Wolfe