For most people, hearing voices is a bad sign. For a writer, the voices inside their head become the characters on their paper, which tell the story in their soul. Writers are a uniquely faithful breed, committed to the stories they need to tell, devoted to the words waiting to be put down on the page. It's not a profession one chooses. They are thrust into it, born with that purpose, that life's pursuit. They don't do the work; they become their work. A writer is a self-sacrificing being, as they are one of the few professions to give pieces of themselves away in their work. Here are 11 quotes that describe the life that a writer lives.

"Step into a scene and let it drip into your fingertips." MJ Bush

Writing Advice: Become a part of the scene, interact with your characters. Insert yourself into the story.

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

Writing Advice: Break off a piece of yourself, and sacrifice it to your writing.

"You can make anything by writing." C.S. Lewis

Writing Advice: Your writing is limited only by the bounds of your imagination.

"The art of writing is the art of discovering what you believe." Gustave Flaubert

Writing Advice: Let your writing process include self-discovery.

"But when people say, "Did you always want to be a writer?" I have to say no. I always was a writer." Ursula Le Guin

Writing Advice: Your story is already within you, just waiting to be written.

"Writing is an exploration. You start from nothing and learn as you go." E.L. Doctorow

Writing Advice: Just start writing. The story will come as you go.

"Writers aren't exactly people...they're a whole bunch of people trying to be one person." F. Scott Fitzgerald

Writing Advice: It's OK to put a little of yourself into your characters.

"The good writers touch life often." Ray Bradbury

Writing Advice: Your writing can and should reflect your own life.

“In order to write the book you want to write, in the end you have to become the person you need to become to write that book.” Junot Diaz

Writing Advice: Become the author of the book you want to read.

 "A writer is a writer because even when there is no hope, even when nothing you do shows any sign of promise, you keep writing anyway." Junot Diaz

Writing Advice: Just keep writing.

 “You know how writers are...they create themselves as they create their work. Or perhaps they create their work in order to create themselves.” Orson Scott Card

Writing Advice: Let your work have purpose.