Quintilian Quotes

Write quickly and you will never write well; write well, and you will soon write quickly.

As a rule, one must write a great many words before one learns to write well.

From writing rapidly it does not result that one writes well, but from writing well it results that one writes rapidly.

Learn to write well, or not to write at all.

There is no pleasure in the world like writing well and going fast.

By writing much, one learns to write well.

A.J. Liebling, one of my heroes, used to say that he could write better than anyone who wrote faster, and faster than anyone who could write better. I'm one nine-hundredth as good as Liebling, but that principle may slightly apply.

Writing is one of the few activities where quantity will inevitably make quality. The more you write, the better you're going to get at it.

Once something is well-written, then everything else is gravy.

Writing is like a sport - you only get better if you practice

It's easy to write something average or even something good. But writing well is quite challenging.

Writing is like a sport. If you don't practice, you don't get any better.

Good writers hate bad writing but hating bad writing doesn’t make you good. Writing badly does.

I write fast, I write beautifully, I write convincingly.

Ultimately, the first, best step in getting your work noticed is to write good work. If people don't engage in your writing, no amount of serialization or free downloads is going to matter. You have to write something worth reading, and often it takes time to get at that level.

There is no way of writing well and also of writing easily.

The more you write, the more you're capable of writing.

When I was younger, the main struggle was to be a 'good writer.' Now I more or less take my writing abilities for granted, although this doesn't mean I always write well.

Nothing improves your writing, I think, as much as your keeping writing.

There is no left and right in writing. There is only good and bad writing.

Writing doesn't come easily to anyone, I think, certainly not to me. But pressure and practice does lend a certain fluency, I think - the more sentences you write, the more sentences you have written, if that slightly Zen confection makes any sense.

I learned to write by writing.

Don't waste time looking for a better pencil: learn to write better.

Although there is no substitute for merit in writing, clarity comes closest to being one.