“You are either born a writer or you are not.”

“I wouldn't say I was a born writer; I'm a born thinker.”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter

“He asked, "What makes a man a writer?" "Well," I said, "it's simple. You either get it down on paper, or jump off a bridge.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

“In this world you either read or write, and writers write out of contempt for their colleagues, out of a desire to have something good to read once in a while.”

Umberto Eco book The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana

“I'm either going to be a writer or a bum.”

Carl Sandburg (1878–1967) American writer and editor

“When a writer is born into a family, the family is finished.”

Czeslaw Milosz (1911–2004) Polish, poet, diplomat, prosaist, writer, and translator

“A writer never has a vacation. For a writer, life consists of either writing or thinking about writing.”

Eugéne Ionesco (1909–1994) Romanian playwright

“The true writer, the born writer, will scribble words on scraps of litter, the back of a bus tickets, on the wall of a cell.”

David Nicholls book One Day

“Each writer is born with a repertory company in his head.”

Gore Vidal (1925–2012) American writer

“You become a writer because you need to become a writer - nothing else.”

Grace Paley (1922–2007) American writer and activist