Sometimes it helps to have a reminder that you are not the first one to struggle with words. Here are a few writing quotes to make you nod in agreement, or even smile as you sit down to tap those keys today.

“I think I did pretty well, considering I started out with nothing but a bunch of blank paper.”

-Steve Martin

“Success comes to a writer, as a rule, so gradually that it is always something of a shock to him to look back and realize the heights to which he has climbed.”

-P.G. Wodehouse

“If we had to say what writing is, we would define it essentially as an act of courage.”

-Cynthia Ozick

“The difference between the right word and the nearly right word is the same as that between lightning and the lightning bug.”

-Mark Twain

“Your audience is one single reader. I have found that sometimes it helps to pick out one person—a real person you know, or an imagined person and write to that one.”

-John Steinbeck

“When I have trouble writing, I step outside my studio into the garden and pull weeds until my mind clears—I find weeding to be the best therapy there is for writer’s block.”

-Irving Stone

“The best time for planning (a writing project) is while you’re doing the dishes.”

-Agatha Christie