“How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.”

“But if in vain, down on the stubborn floor
Of Earth, and up to Heav'n's unopening Door
You gaze To-day, while You are You — how then
To-morrow, You when shall be You no more?”

Omar Khayyám (1048–1131) Persian poet, philosopher, mathematician, and astronomer

“If you want people to listen to you, you have to listen to them. If you hope people will change how they live, you have to know how they live. If you want people to see you, you have to sit down with them eye-to-eye.”

Gloria Steinem (1934) American feminist and journalist

“Mr Churchill, to what do you attribute your success in life?

Conservation of energy. Never stand up when you can sit down. And never sit down when you can lie down.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

“Sit down every day and DO IT. Writing is a self-taught craft; the more you work at it, the more skilled you become. And when you're not writing, READ.”

Lois Duncan (1934–2016) American young-adult and children's writer

“The woman will sit eternally in the tall black armchair. I will be the one woman you will never have… excessive living weighs down the imagination: we will not live, we will only write and talk to swell the sails.”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica

“When you sit down to write, write. Don't do anything else except go to the bathroom, and only do that if it absolutely cannot be put off.”

Stephen King (1947) American author

“Well, I would have struck him, but I would have had to get up. You have no notion how difficult it is to arrange skirts when sitting down; it took me five minutes together the first time.”

Naomi Novik book His Majesty's Dragon

“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

“If you want to be a writer-stop talking about it and sit down and write!”

Jackie Collins (1937–2015) British-American novelist and writer