WRITING QUOTES XXIII

quotations about writing

Any writer of any worth at all hopes to play only a pocket-torch of light -- and rarely, through genius, a sudden flambeau -- into the bloody yet beautiful labyrinth of human experience, of being.

NADINE GORDIMER

Nobel Lecture, December 7, 1991

Tags: Nadine Gordimer


At the age of fourteen I discovered writing as an escape from a world of reality in which I felt acutely uncomfortable.

TENNESSEE WILLIAMS

foreword, Sweet Bird of Youth

Tags: Tennessee Williams


Crossing out is an art that is, perhaps, even more difficult than writing. It requires the sharpest eye to decide what is superfluous and must be removed. And it requires ruthlessness toward yourself -- the greatest ruthlessness and self-sacrifice. You must know how to sacrifice parts in the name of the whole.

YEVGENY ZAMYATIN

Theme and Plot

Tags: Yevgeny Zamyatin


I hate writing, I love having written.

DOROTHY PARKER

attributed, Rhymes with Vain


I turn sentences around. That's my life. I write a sentence and then I turn it around. Then I look at it and turn it around again.

PHILIP ROTH

Ghost Writer

Tags: Philip Roth


I've gotten a little superstitious about listening to music when I write. Once a story is going somewhere, I keep listening to the same music whenever I work on that story. It seems to help me keep in voice, and alternatively, if I need to make some kind of dramatic shift, I'll go and put on something different to shake myself awake.

KELLY LINK

"Words by Flashlight", Sybil's Garage, June 7, 2006

Tags: Kelly Link


If I write novels in a country in which most citizens are illiterate, who then is my community?

CHINUA ACHEBE

Hopes and Impediments: Selected Essays


If you don't have the time to read, you don't have the time or the tools to write.

STEPHEN KING

On Writing

Tags: Stephen King


Learn to write well, or not to write at all.

JOHN DRYDEN

Essay on Satire

Tags: John Dryden


Mostly, we authors must repeat ourselves--that's the truth. We have two or three great moving experiences in our lives--experiences so great and moving that it doesn't seem at the time that anyone else has been so caught up and pounded and dazzled and astonished and beaten and broken and rescued and illuminated and rewarded and humbled in just that way ever before.

F. SCOTT FITZGERALD

"One Hundred False Starts", Saturday Evening Post, March 4, 1933


My plots are always rudimentary. Whatever I've accomplished certainly does not depend on my virtuosity with plot. Generally I don't even have a plot. What happens is that my characters engage in an action, and out of that action little bits of plot sometimes adhere to the narrative. I never have to worry about lifting a plot, because I don't conceive of a book that way.

NORMAN MAILER

The Paris Review, winter-spring 1964


Nothing can destroy the good writer. The only thing that can alter the good writer is death. Good ones don't have time to bother with success or getting rich.

WILLIAM FAULKNER

The Paris Review, spring 1956

Tags: William Faulkner


Perhaps the pleasure one feels in writing is not the infallible test of the literary value of a page; perhaps it is only a secondary state which is often superadded, but the want of which can have no prejudicial effect on it. Perhaps some of the greatest masterpieces were written while yawning.

MARCEL PROUST

Within a Budding Grove

Tags: Marcel Proust


The publishers want series, obviously. Originally, they wanted me to do the Garrett series along with another similar series, so it would be one book every six months. Eventually I'd just do the outlines and they'd get some poor unknown author to flesh out the stories. That's why you see so many books by a famous author and an unknown. You can make half the money basically by selling your name. The thing is, once your name is on enough bad books, maybe it isn't worth all that much any more.

GLEN COOK

interview, Quantum Muse


To write weekly, to write daily, to write shortly, to write for busy people catching trains in the morning or for tired people coming home in the evening, is a heartbreaking task for men who know good writing from bad. They do it, but instinctively draw out of harm's way anything precious that might be damaged by contact with the public, or anything sharp that might irritate its skin.

VIRGINIA WOOLF

The Common Reader


Trouble not thyself about the fate of thy writings: if what thou hast writ be worth preserving, no flood, however mighty, can sweep it away; if it be worthless, no ink, however prepared, can make it indelible.

IVAN PANIN

Thoughts

Tags: Ivan Panin


What I like to do is write the story, see where it takes me -- and then check out the details I don't know. When I first started writing, there were a lot of things about the world that I understood but didn't have the vocabulary for -- and even more things that I just had no idea about. For instance, do you know all the parts of a door frame? Or what flowers bloom in the spring in alpine climates? There's a surprising amount of homework involved in writing a book.

PATRICIA BRIGGS

interview, Bitten by Books, March 30, 2010


When I first started I was obsessed--putting in 16 hours a day, seven days a week, and loving it. My in-laws told my husband that perhaps he should get some help for me. Once the book was published it was OK because writers can be a little crazy.

JEAN M. AUEL

interview, goodreads, April 2011

Tags: Jean M. Auel


You must write according to your feelings, be sure those feelings are true, and let everything else go hang.

JULIAN BARNES

Flaubert's Parrot

Tags: Julian Barnes


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

THOMAS MANN

Essays of Three Decades