on writing - a writer is...

A writer lives, at least, in a state of astonishment. Beneath any
feeling he has of the good or evil of the world lies a deeper one of
wonder at it all. To transmit that feeling, he writes.
- William Sansom

Real writers are those who want to write, need to write, have to write.
- Robert Penn Warren

The duty and the task of a writer are those of an interpreter.
- Marcel Proust

A writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for
other people.   - Thomas Mann

A writer is someone who can make a riddle out of an answer.
- Karl Kraus

A professional writer is an amateur who didn't quit.   - Richard Bach

Writers aren’t people exactly. Or, if they’re any good, they’re a
whole lot of people trying so hard to be one person.   - F. Scott Fitzgerald