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Who really said it

Don't Like to Write, But Like Having Written

Not Dorothy Parker — Frank Norris, in a letter published in 1915 Frank Norris 1870–1902 · American novelist and journalist
Disputed Free to reuse

This exact wording comes from a letter by the novelist Frank Norris describing his working habits, published in the Minneapolis journal The Bellman on 4 December 1915 — after his death — and reprinted widely in newspapers over the following months. Quote Investigator, whose earliest citation this is, provisionally credits Norris. The earliest link to Dorothy Parker that QI located dates from 1972, five years after she died.

Last verified 2 Sep 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

For presentations

Put it on a slide

Disputed credit — copy with the correction

“Don't Like to Write, But Like Having Written” Not Dorothy Parker. Frank Norris, in a letter published in The Bellman, 4 December 1915: "Don’t like to write, but like having written."

The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Dorothy Parker. Use the credit shown above instead.

Can you use it?

Free to use, including in commercial and paid presentations — no permission or licence needed.

Image direction — grounded in this quote’s real context; paste into your image tool

In context

Evoking the world of Frank Norris — American novelist and journalist of the naturalist school. Theme: "Don't Like to Write, But Like Having Written". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Minimalist

Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "Don't Like to Write, But Like Having Written". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

The source

Work
The Bellman, ‘The Writing Grind’
Published
4 December 1915, volume 19, start page 642, quote page 643
Author of the quoted letter
Frank Norris (1870–1902), published posthumously
Acknowledged to
Detroit Saturday Night; reprinted in newspapers through 1915–1916

I write with great difficulty, but have managed somehow to accomplish 40 short stories (all published in fugitive fashion) and five novels within the last three years, and a lot of special unsigned articles. Believe my forte is the novel. Don’t like to write, but like having written. Hate the effort of driving pen from line to line, work only three hours a day, but work every day. Frank Norris, letter, in The Bellman, 4 December 1915

The quoted sentence is the third in the passage, and it is telegraphic because the whole letter is — Norris drops his subject pronouns throughout. That clipped register is why the line reads as an epigram, and why it detached so cleanly from the paragraph around it.

Scanned volume
The Bellman, volume 19 (1915) on Google Books
Quote Investigator — the 1915 to 2013 chain

How we verified this

  • Quote Investigator’s earliest citation is The Bellman of 4 December 1915, volume 19, quote page 643, in a piece titled ‘The Writing Grind’ that acknowledges Detroit Saturday Night. The wording matches this quote exactly the 1915 citation ↗.
  • The letter was Norris’s, published after his death and then syndicated: QI lists reprints in The Racine Journal News (December 1915), The Charleroi Mail (January 1916) and the Chicago Tribune (February 1916) the reprint chain ↗.
  • The saying then circulates for decades with no fixed owner — ascribed to an unnamed magazine writer (1936), an anonymous professional (1946), ‘Stevenson’ (1954), and used in the first person by Cornelia Otis Skinner (1964) and the critic Clive Barnes (1968) the chronological citations ↗.
  • The earliest attribution to Dorothy Parker that QI located is from 1972 — an episode of the sitcom The Odd Couple, in which Oscar Madison says ‘Dorothy Parker said it best for all writers’. Parker died in 1967 the 1972 citation ↗.
Public domain

Free to reuse. The sentence was published in The Bellman on 4 December 1915 and reprinted in American newspapers through 1916 — all well before 1931, so the wording is in the public domain in the United States and you may reproduce the passage in full. Norris himself died in 1902. The later restatements by living writers are their own wording and a separate question. This is not legal advice.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

Fact-check

A line with a long queue of claimants

Almost every writer who has ever been asked whether they enjoy writing has produced some version of this, which is exactly why it has no stable owner. The Parker credit is one of the later ones, and it starts after she was dead.

First credited in 1972 posthumous credit

The earliest Parker attribution Quote Investigator located is a 1972 episode of The Odd Couple; a 1978 Los Angeles Times interview with Larry Gelbart repeats it. Parker died in 1967, and the wording is documented from 1915 the Parker citations ↗.

A 1954 guess, unsupported unsupported

A Washington Post columnist credited ‘Stevenson’ in 1954, apparently meaning Robert Louis Stevenson, who died in 1894. QI found no earlier support for the ascription the 1954 column ↗.

Credited in a 1976 newspaper later restatement

An Idaho paper in November 1976 wrote that ‘most writers, as Gloria Steinem has said, don’t like writing; they like having written’ — sixty-one years after the Norris letter the 1976 citation ↗.

Used it and said so quoting, not coining

Martin employed the line in a 2011 interview and, asked about it again in 2013, answered: ‘Which is not original again with me either. A lot of writers have said that.’ the 2013 interview ↗.

The exact wording belongs to Frank Norris, in a letter published in The Bellman on 4 December 1915 — fifty-seven years before anyone credited Dorothy Parker the evidence ↗.

Context

Why every writer claims it

The line survives because it is true and slightly shameful, and because it converts a private misery into a joke you can make at a dinner party. Any working writer can say it with conviction, which means any working writer can plausibly be credited with it.

That is the mechanism behind most orphaned aphorisms. A sentiment everyone shares generates the same sentence again and again, and each new speaker is a fresh candidate for authorship — until the version with the most famous name attached crowds the rest out.

Hate the effort of driving pen from line to line, work only three hours a day, but work every day.

Read the full story

Quote Investigator lists at least nine claimants across a century, and the shape of the drift is consistent: the wording gets warmer as it travels. Norris’s clipped ‘don’t like…like having written’ becomes ‘I hate writing, but I love having written’ — QI notes that strengthening ‘like’ to ‘love’ is the common modification.

It is worth noting what this page is not saying. Parker may well have said something in this vein; she was asked about writing often enough. What the record does not support is the claim that she originated it, and the wording quoted here is documented in print more than fifty years before her name was attached to it.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Work Creativity Success

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Don't Like to Write, But Like Having Writtenquoteinvestigator.com

The full chain from the 1915 Norris letter through Parker, Steinem and George R. R. Martin.
The Bellman, volume 19 (1915)books.google.com

Google Books full view of the volume Quote Investigator cites for the 4 December 1915 item.
Frank Norrisen.wikipedia.org

Biography of the novelist QI credits with the wording.
Dorothy Parker on Wikiquoteen.wikiquote.org

Wikiquote’s sourced, attributed and misattributed lists for Parker.
The Octopus: A Story of Californiaen.wikipedia.org

Norris’s best-known novel, published the year before his death.
Dorothy Parkeren.wikipedia.org

Biography of the writer the line is usually pinned on, including her 1967 death date.

The author

About Frank Norris

Frank Norris

1870–1902 · American novelist and journalist of the naturalist school

Frank Norris wrote McTeague and The Octopus and died at thirty-two, having produced an enormous amount of work in a very short career. The letter this line comes from is a plain account of how he managed it — forty short stories and five novels in three years, three hours of writing a day, every day — which is what makes the complaint credible rather than decorative.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

The primary source (Chicago)

“The Writing Grind.” The Bellman (Minneapolis), vol. 19, 4 December 1915, start page 642, quote page 643, col. 1, quoting a letter by Frank Norris; acknowledged to Detroit Saturday Night. Citation per Quote Investigator; volume available in Google Books full view.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Don’t Like to Write, But Like Having Written’?” Last verified 2 Sep 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/dont-like-to-write-but-like-having-written/

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