“I write to give myself strength. I write to be the characters that I am not. I write to explore all the things I'm afraid of.”

“I am not at all in a humor for writing; I must write on till I am.”

Jane Austen (1775–1817) English novelist

“I am interested in detail. I enjoy decoration. By accumulating this mass of detail you throw light on things in a longer sense: in the long run it all adds up. It creates a texture — how shall I put it — a background, a period, which makes everything you write that much more convincing. Of course, all artists are terrible egoists. Unconsciously you are largely writing about yourself. I could never write anything factual; I only have confidence in myself when I am another character. All the characters in my books are myself, but they are a kind of disguise.”

Patrick White (1912–1990) English-born Australian writer

“I don't write in Portuguese. I write myself.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

“I cannot write to anyone outside myself--if I tried, it would be a horrible story, flat and lifeless. I write to myself. That's the only person I'm trying to please.”

Shannon Hale (1974) American fantasy novelist

“Why am I compelling to write? Because te writing saves me from this complacency I fear. Because I have no choice. Because I must keep the spirit of my revolt and myself alive. Because the world I create in the writing compensates for what the real world does not give me. By writing I put order in the world, give it a handle so I can grasp it. I write because life does not appaese my appetites and hunger.”

Gloria E. Anzaldúa (1942–2004) Chicana cultural theory, feminist theory, and queer theory

“I am writing My Life to laugh at myself, and I am succeeding.”

Giacomo Casanova (1725–1798) Italian adventurer and author from the Republic of Venice

“Which is why I am writing this book. To think. To understand. It just happens to be the way I'm made. I have to write things down to feel I fully comprehend them.”

Haruki Murakami book Norwegian Wood

“Now I must, I suppose, explain why I have been writing this account. […] I have written to disclose myself to myself, and I am writing now because I will, I know, sometime read what I am now writing and wonder. Perhaps by the time I do, I will have solved the mystery of myself, or perhaps I will no longer care to know the solution.”

Gene Wolfe (1931–2019) American science fiction and fantasy writer

“If I thought that what I'm doing when I write is expressing myself, I'd junk the typewriter. Writing is a much more complicated activity that that.”

Susan Sontag (1933–2004) American writer and filmmaker, professor, and activist