“Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self.”

“For a long time now I have tried simply to write the best I can. Sometimes I have good luck and write better than I can.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

“The engines that have driven poetry's institutional success — the explosion of academic writing programs, the proliferation of subsidized magazines and presses, the emergence of a creative-writing career track, and the migration of American literary culture to the university — have unwittingly contributed to its disappearance from public view.”

Dana Gioia (1950) American writer

“writing about a writer's block is better than not writing at all”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

“Writing is the most fun you can have by yourself.”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

“To write something you have to risk making a fool of yourself.”

Anne Rice (1941) American writer

“Anyone can write. Some people can write a bit better than others; they're called authors. Then there are some who can write better than authors; they're called artists.”

Walter Moers (1957) German comic creator and author

“good publicity is preferable to bad, but from a bottom-line perspective, bad publicity is sometimes better than no publicity at all. Controversy, in short, sells.”

Donald J. Trump book Trump: The Art of the Deal

“Never be entirely idle; but either be reading, or writing, or praying, or meditating, or endeavoring something for the public good.”

Thomas à Kempis (1380–1471) German canon regular

“The desire of a poet for his writings to be in print is as natural as a painter needs to exhibit his work in public.”

Vernon Scannell (1922–2007) British boxer and poet