Writing is work. It is a blessing and a curse; a calling and a haunting. It’s incredibly rewarding, and at the same time, it’s hard.

As an author, you get stuck. You might want to quit, give up and find a new job – discover an easier passion.

Don’t.

All authors – all people, for that matter – encounter times in their lives and careers where things don’t go their way and they lose their drive to continue. When I encounter times like these, I find inspiration in the words of authors and writers I admire. Here are some of my favorite quotes from authors of various genres:

Words are a lens to focus one’s mind. – Ayn Rand

Don’t try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say. It’s the one and only thing you have to offer. – Barbara Kingsolver

There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed. – Ernest Hemingway

The ability of writer to imagine what is not the self, to familiarize the strange and mystify the familiar, is the test of their power. – Toni Morrison

Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way. – E. L. Doctorow

To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme.  – Herman Melville

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Quantity produces quality. If you only write a few things, you’re doomed. – Ray Bradbury

You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write. – Saul Bellow

To write is to write is to write is to write is to write is to write is to write is to write. – Gertrude Stein

First, find out what your hero wants, then just follow him! – Ray Bradbury

Get it down. Take chances. It may be bad, but it’s the only way you can do anything really good. – William Faulkner

Writing is its own reward. – Henry Miller

Great is the art of beginning, but greater is the art of ending. – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

There are two kinds of writer: those that make you think, and those that make you wonder. – Brian Aldiss

What’s your favorite inspirational quote about writing?