Are you on dialup or something? It shouldn't take that long if you are downloading from Apple, and if you are downloading from a Torrent, you shouldn't complain about it here on these boards because that's not condoned. (not saying you are, just saying in general)
You can use TextEdit as was mentioned, it's included with your Mac in the applications folder. You should look in there, there's lots of cool stuff that's not on your dock by default.
AbiWord, OpenOffice, NeoOffice are also other alternatives. iWork is great though.