“You don't write because you want to say something, you write because you have something to say.”
Notebook E: Epigrams, Wisecracks, and Jokes https://books.google.com/books?id=NIhKY8SpAE4C&q=%22You%20don%27t%20write%20because%20you%20want%20to%20say%20something%3B%20you%20write%20because%20you%27ve%20got%20something%20to%20say.%22&pg=PA123#v=onepage, edited by Edmund Wilson (1945)
Quoted, The Crack-Up (1936)
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F. Scott Fitzgerald 411
American novelist and screenwriter 1896–1940Related quotes

Oui interview (1979)
Context: Just because somebody hears something you say, or reads something that you write, doesn’t mean you’ve reached them. With reading comprehension being what it is in the U. S., you can safely toss that one out the window. If you want to judge by the listening habits of people who buy records, the first thing they do is put it on and talk over it.

“If you can't write a decent short story because of the cold, write something else. Write anything.”
The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze (1934), A Cold Day
Context: If you can't write a decent short story because of the cold, write something else. Write anything. Write a long letter to somebody.

As quoted in Conversations with Edward Albee (1988) by Philip C. Kolin, p. 176
Context: I survive almost any onslaught with a shrug, which must appear as arrogance, but really isn't because I'm not an arrogant person. When you write a play, you make a set of assumptions — that you have something to say, that you know how to say it, that its worth saying, and that maybe someone will come along for the ride. That's all. And then you go about your business, assuming you'd be the first to know if your talent has collapsed.
I don't think I've been a commercial playwright ever. By some curious mischance, a couple of my plays managed to hit an area where commercial success was feasible. But it's wrong to think I'm a commercial playwright who has somehow ceased his proper function. I have always been the same thing — which is not a commercial playwright. I'm not after the brass ring. I very seldom get it anyway, and then it's accidental when I do. … So I write those things that interest me.
It – How Churches and Leaders Can Get It and Keep It (2008, Zondervan)

On her views of writing in “Jamaica Kincaid: Does Truth Have a Tone?” https://www.guernicamag.com/does-truth-have-a-tone/ in Guernica (2013 Jun 17)

Doin' It Again, Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics (1990)