“I must write it all out, at any cost. Writing is thinking. It is more than living, for it is being conscious of living.”

“It's much more entertaining to live books than to write them.”

Jean Webster book Daddy-Long-Legs

“Any woman or man who would write the truth of their lives would write a great work. But no one has dared to write the truth of their lives.”

Isadora Duncan (1877–1927) American dancer and choreographer

“I must be lean & write & make worlds beside this to live in.”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer

“When it's in a book I don't think it'll hurt any more… exist any more. One of the things writing does is wipe things out. Replace them.”

Marguerite Duras book The Lover

“You philosophers are lucky men. You write on paper and paper is patient. Unfortunate Empress that I am, I write on the susceptible skins of living beings.”

Catherine the Great (1729–1796) Empress of Russia

“In order to write about life first you must live it.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

“You should write, first of all, to please yourself. You shouldn't care a damn about anybody else at all. But writing can't be a way of life - the important part of writing is living. You have to live in such a way that your writing emerges from it.”

Doris Lessing (1919–2013) British novelist, poet, playwright, librettist, biographer and short story writer

“I am out of theatre. I will not work with any theatre, producer, writer, director, or actor who plays and lives the stereotype. So I write fiction, essays, and articles.”

Frank Chin (1940) American writer

“I am jealous of those who think more deeply, who write better, who draw better, who ski better, who look better, who live better, who love better than I.”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer