Nathaniel Hawthorne Quotes about Writing

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Words - so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them.

Words - so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Honesty, Integrity, Writing

1847; quoted by propagandist and language maven William Safire, New York Times Magazine, 13 December 1998.

Easy reading is damn hard writing.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Powerful, Reading, Writing

When a writer calls his work a Romance, it need hardly be observed that he wishes to claim a certain latitude, both as to its fashion and material, which he would not have felt himself entitled to assume had he professed to be writing a Novel.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Fashion, Writing, Romance

1851 The House of the Seven Gables, preface.

Romance and poetry, ivy, lichens and wallflowers need ruin to make them grow.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Writing, Ivy, Romance

Nathaniel Hawthorne (2012). “The Marble Faun”, p.4, Courier Corporation

The only sensible ends of literature are, first, the pleasurable toil of writing; second, the gratification of one's family and friends; and lastly, the solid cash.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Friendship, Writing, Family And Friends

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1965). “The house of the seven gables”

No author, without a trial, can conceive of the difficulty of writing a romance about a country where there is no shadow, no antiquity, no mystery, no picturesque and gloomy wrong, nor anything but a commonplace prosperity, in broad and simple daylight, as is happily the case with my dear native land.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Country, Writing, Simple

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1983). “Novels”, p.854, Library of America

Writing can come naturally to some. Still, when it comes to good writing, this is true: Easy reading is damn hard writing.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Reading, Writing, Easy

The greatest possible mint of style is to make the words absolutely disappear into the thought.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Writing, Style, Disappear

In youth men are apt to write more wisely than they really know or feel; and the remainder of life may be not idly spent in realizing and convincing themselves of the wisdom which they uttered long ago.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Wisdom, Writing, Men

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1872). “The Snow-image, and Other Twice-told Tales”, p.10