Rainer Maria Rilke Quotes about Writing

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If, when you wake up in the morning, you can think of nothing but writing . . . then you are a writer.

If, when you wake up in the morning, you can think of nothing but writing . . . then you are a writer.

Rainer Maria Rilke

Morning, Writing, Thinking

Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depth of your heart; confess to yourself you would have to die if you were forbidden to write.

Rainer Maria Rilke

Writing, Heart, Roots

Rainer Maria Rilke (2001). “Letters to a Young Poet”

Whoever has no house now, will never have one. Whoever is alone will stay alone, will sit, read, write long letters through the evening, and wander on the boulevards, up and down, restlessly, while dry leaves are blowing.

Rainer Maria Rilke

Writing, Long, House

Rainer Maria Rilke, “Autumn Day”

I am learning to see. I don't know why it is, but everything enters me more deeply and doesn't stop where it once used to. I have an interior that I never knew of... What's the use of telling someone that I am changing? If I'm changing, I am no longer who I was; and if I am something else, it's obvious that I have no acquaintances. And I can't possibly write to strangers.

Rainer Maria Rilke

Writing, Use, Stranger

This above all-ask yourself in the stillest hour of your night: must I write? Delve into yourself for a deep answer. And if this should be affirmative, if you may meet this earnest question with a strong and simple "I must," then build your life according to this necessity; your life even into its most indifferent and slightest hour must be a sign of this urge and a testimony to it. Then draw near to Nature. Then try, like some first human being, to say what you see and experience and love and lose.

Rainer Maria Rilke

Strong, Nature, Writing

No one can advise or help you - no one. There is only one thing you should do. Go into yourself. Search for the reason that bids you write, find out wether it spreading out its root in the deepest places of your heart...Delve into yourself for a deep answer

Rainer Maria Rilke

Writing, Heart, Roots

Dig deep into your heart, where the answer spreads its roots in your being, and ask yourself solemnly, Must I write?

Rainer Maria Rilke

Writing, Heart, Roots

To write rhythmic prose one must go deep into oneself and find the anonymous and multiple rhythm of the blood. Prose needs to be built like a cathedral. There, one is truly without a name, without ambition, without help; on scaffoldings, alone with one's consciousness.

Rainer Maria Rilke

Writing, Ambition, Blood

Ask yourself in the most silent hour of your night: must I write [create]? Dig into yourself for a deep answer.

Rainer Maria Rilke

Writing, Night, Answers

with poems one accomplishes so little when one writes them early. One should hold off and gather sense and sweetness a whole life long, a long life if possible, and then, right at the end, one could perhaps write ten lines that are good.

Rainer Maria Rilke

Writing, Long, Lines

Rainer Maria Rilke, Burton Pike (2008). “The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge”, p.13, Dalkey Archive Press