25 Pencil Quotes for Stationery Lovers

The world of the pencil and the lingering scent of wood shavings at your desk appears to be slipping away. We have gathered here great and humble defenses of the simple pencil as an instrument of thought, wonderful power and as a metaphor for much more.

This is a list of some of the best quotes and thoughts about the simple wonder of the pencil. Enjoy these pencil quotes and share with like minded stationery loving souls.

Quotes About Pencils (and Life)

1. “What really matters in a pencil is not its wooden exterior, but the graphite inside. So always pay attention to what is happening inside you.” – Paulo Coelho

2. “A pencil and paper go hand in hand, creating a world of endless possibilities.” – Frank Gehry

3. “A pencil is a faithful friend that never lets you down, always ready to create and inspire.” – Haruki Murakami

4. “Everybody makes mistakes, that’s why they put erasers on pencils.” – Tommy Lasorda

5. “I believe that the combination of pencil and memory creates a kind of practical magic, and magic is dangerous.” – Stephen King

6. “In spite of everything I shall rise again: I will take up my pencil, which I have forsaken in my great discouragement, and I will go on with my drawing.” – Vincent Van Gogh

7. “Homework, I have discovered, involves a sharp pencil and thick books and long sighs.” – Katherine Applegate

8. “In my opinion, there’s nothing that can be done to make the pencil better than it is. It’s perfect.” – Caroline Weaver

9. “Map out your future – but do it in pencil. The road ahead is as long as you make it. Make it worth the trip.” – Jon Bon Jovi

10. “The pencil and computer are, if left to their own devices, equally dumb and only as good as the person driving them.” – Norman Foster

11. “Ideas are elusive, slippery things. Best to keep a pad of paper and a pencil at your bedside, so you can stab them during the night before they get away.” – Earl Nightingale

12. “I definitely feel that my brain works differently, and words come out differently, if I have a pencil in my hand, rather than if I have a keyboard.” – Lily King

13. “The pencil is a wonderful invention. One looks at it like a wand and the pencil obeys.” – John Steinbeck

14. “The pencil allows us to bring our thoughts to life, stroke by stroke.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

15. “A #2 pencil and a dream can take you anywhere.” – Joyce Meyer

16. “The pencil is mightier than the pen.” – Robert M. Pirsig

17. “There’s life for you. Spend the best years of your life studying penmanship and rhetoric and syntax and Beowulf and George Eliot, and then somebody steals your pencil.” – Dorothy Parker

18. “It’s like my whole world is coming undone, but when I write, my pencil is a needle and thread, and I’m stitching the scraps back together.” – Julia Alvarez

19. “I think I am becoming obsessive-compulsive. David Beckham apparently turns all the Diet Coke cans in his fridge to face the same way every morning, and I nerdily sharpen all the pencils in my pot before sitting down to work.” – Andrew O’Hagan

20. “With a pencil and paper, I could revise the world.” – Alison Lurie

21. “It’s amazing how many people even today use a computer to do something you can do with a pencil and paper in less time.” – Richard P. Feynman

22. “What keeps me writing is that I can only know through writing. My major sense organ is apparently a pencil.” – Kay Ryan

23. “You can lead a horse to water, but a pencil must be led.” – Stan Laurel

24. “Lying in bed would be an altogether perfect and supreme experience if only one had a colored pencil long enough to draw on the ceiling.” – Gilbert K. Chesterton