Quotes about writing

19 real sentences about writing, left by people who came before us, from later 6th century to 1891, oldest first. Each one has its source and the original text.

Antara ibn Shaddad عنترة بن شداد

later 6th century · pre-Islamic Arabia · He opens his poem with a sigh that those before him have already said everything

Have the poets left any place still to be patched? And did you know the dwelling again, after doubting?

هل غادر الشعراء من متردم أم هل عرفت الدار بعد توهم

The Muallaqa, opening line, Divan of Antara

Open this post

Jia Dao 賈島

early 9th century · Tang China

Two lines, three years in the getting. I chant them once and two streams of tears run down. If those who know my music do not care for them, I shall go home and lie down in the autumn of my old hills.

二句三年得，一吟雙淚流。知音如不賞，歸臥故山秋。

"Written After a Poem," in the Complete Tang Poems

Open this post

Ki no Tsurayuki 紀貫之

c. 935 · Heian Japan · The writer was a male official past sixty. At the time men kept diaries only in Chinese

Diaries are things men are said to keep; I, a woman, will try keeping one too.

男もすなる日記といふものを、女もしてみむとてするなり。

Tosa Diary (Tosa nikki), the first sentence

Open this post

Zhu Shuzhen 朱淑真

12th century · Song China

For a woman to play with writing is truly a fault. How much worse to sing of the moon and chant to the wind. Wear a hole through an iron inkstone, and what have you achieved? Break gold needles at your embroidery: that is what counts as merit.

女子弄文誠可罪，那堪詠月更吟風。磨穿鐵硯成何事，繡折金鍼卻有功。

"Reproaching Myself," the first poem, in the Complete Song Poems

Open this post

Yoshida Kenko 兼好

c. 1330 · late Kamakura Japan

With nothing to do, I sit all day before my inkstone, writing down without order or purpose the trifles that drift through my mind, and it gives me a strange, half-crazed feeling.

つれづれなるままに、日くらし、すずりに向かひて、心にうつりゆくよしなしごとを、そこはかとなく書きつくれば、あやしうこそものぐるほしけれ。

Tsurezuregusa (Essays in Idleness), the preface

Open this post

Sejong 世宗

1446 · Joseon Korea

The sounds of our country's language differ from those of China and do not match the Chinese characters. So among the simple people there are many who have something they wish to say and yet in the end cannot make their meaning known. I am moved to pity by this and have newly made twenty-eight letters. I wish only that everyone may learn them easily and use them with comfort every day.

國之語音。異乎中國。與文字不相流通。故愚民。有所欲言而終不得伸其情者。多矣。予。為此憫然。新制二十八字。欲使人人易習。便於日用耳

Hunminjeongeum (the Haerye edition), the king's preface

Open this post

Miguel de Cervantes

1605 · Spain

Idle reader: you may believe me without my swearing it that I would wish this book, as the child of my understanding, to be the most beautiful, the most gallant and the most clever that could be imagined.

Desocupado lector: sin juramento me podrás creer que quisiera que este libro, como hijo del entendimiento, fuera el más hermoso, el más gallardo y más discreto que pudiera imaginarse.

Don Quixote, part 1, prologue

Open this post

Miguel de Cervantes

1605 · Spain

In a village of La Mancha, the name of which I have no wish to recall, there lived not long ago one of those gentlemen who keep a lance in the rack, an old shield, a lean nag and a greyhound for coursing.

En un lugar de la Mancha, de cuyo nombre no quiero acordarme, no ha mucho tiempo que vivía un hidalgo de los de lanza en astillero, adarga antigua, rocín flaco y galgo corredor.

Don Quixote, part 1, chapter 1, the first sentence

Open this post

Samuel Pepys

May 31, 1669 · London, England · At thirty-six. He stopped the diary for fear of going blind, but he did not lose his sight and lived another thirty-four years

And thus ends all that I doubt I shall ever be able to do with my own eyes in the keeping of my journal, I being not able to do it any longer, having done now as long as to undo my eyes almost every time that I take a pen in my hand.

The last day of the diary

Open this post

Zhang Chao 張潮

1690s · Qing China

A person should try to be fit for a poem; a thing should try to be fit for a painting.

人須求可入詩，物須求可入畫。

Dream Shadows (Youmengying)

Open this post

Jeong Yakyong 丁若鏞

1832 · Joseon Korea

When the mood comes, I turn a thought; when the thought comes, I write it down. I am a man of Joseon, and gladly I write Joseon poems.

興到卽運意意到卽寫之我是朝鮮人甘作朝鮮詩

Yeoyudang jeonseo, "An Old Man's Pleasures," fifth poem

Open this post

Charles Dickens

1850 · London, England

Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show.

David Copperfield, the first sentence

Open this post

Charles Baudelaire

1857 · Paris, France

Hypocrite reader, my likeness, my brother!

Hypocrite lecteur,--mon semblable,--mon frère!

"To the Reader," in The Flowers of Evil

Open this post

Harriet Jacobs

1861 · North Carolina, USA

Reader be assured this narrative is no fiction. I am aware that some of my adventures may seem incredible; but they are, nevertheless, strictly true.

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, preface

Open this post

Louisa May Alcott

May 1868 · Concord, Massachusetts, USA

Mr. N. wants a girls' story, and I begin "Little Women." Marmee, Anna, and May all approve my plan. So I plod away, though I don't enjoy this sort of thing. Never liked girls or knew many, except my sisters; but our queer plays and experiences may prove interesting, though I doubt it.

Journal

Open this post

Machado de Assis

1881 · Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

For some time I hesitated whether I should open these memoirs at the beginning or at the end, that is, whether I should put my birth or my death in first place.