WRITING QUOTES VI

quotations about writing

I hardly ever work from a synopsis -- I find they act like chains.

TANITH LEE

Realms of Fantasy, August 2009

Tags: Tanith Lee


You grow a whole lot more as a writer by getting old stories out of the house and letting new ones come in and live with you until they grow up and are ready to go. Don't let the old ones stay there and grow fat and cranky and eat all the food out of the refrigerator. You have dozens of generations of stories inside you, but the only way to make room for the new ones is to write the old ones and mail them off.

ORSON SCOTT CARD

How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy

Tags: Orson Scott Card


When I write, I feel like an armless, legless man with a crayon in his mouth.

KURT VONNEGUT

attributed, The Biteback Dictionary of Humorous Literary Quotations

Tags: Kurt Vonnegut


I don't think it is worth explaining how a character's nose or chin looks. It is my feeling that readers will prefer to construct, little by little, their own character--the author will do well to entrust the reader with this part of the work.

JOSÉ SARAMAGO

The Paris Review, winter 1998


When you finish one book, you don't want to just write the same book again.

JEFFREY EUGENIDES

Slate, October 10, 2011


Composition is a process of combination, in which thought puts together complementary truths, and talent fuses into harmony the most contrary qualities of style. So that there is no composition without effort, without pain even, as in all bringing forth. The reward is the giving birth to something living--something, that is to say, which, by a kind of magic, makes a living unity out of such opposed attributes as orderliness and spontaneity, thought and imagination, solidity and charm.

HENRI-FREDERIC AMIEL

Journal Intime

Tags: Henri-Frederic Amiel


All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence you know.

ERNEST HEMINGWAY

A Moveable Feast

Tags: Ernest Hemingway


When you invent something, you're drawing on reservoirs of knowledge that you already have. It's only when you're faithful to the truth that something can come to you from the outside.

ELIF BATUMAN

interview, The Rumpus, April 25, 2012

Tags: Elif Batuman


Writing is a concentrated form of thinking. I don't know what I think about certain subjects, even today, until I sit down and try to write about them.

DON DELILLO

Conversations with Don DeLillo


To me, writing is not a profession. You might as well call living a profession. Or having children. Anything you can't help doing.

VICKI BAUM

I Know What I'm Worth

Tags: Vicki Baum


To those who no longer have a homeland, writing becomes home.

THEODOR W. ADORNO

Minima Moralia

Tags: Theodor W. Adorno


The novelist is like the conductor of an orchestra, his back to the audience, his face invisible, summoning the experience of music for the people he cannot see. The writer as conductor also gets to compose the music and play all of the instruments, a task less formidable than it seems. What it requires is the conscious practice of providing an extraordinary experience for the reader, who should be oblivious to the fact that he is seeing words on paper.

SOL STEIN

Stein on Writing


Well, when I was a young writer the people we read were Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Sartre, Camus, Celine, Malraux. And to begin with, I was a bit of a copycat writer and very derivative and tried to write a novel using their voices, really.... I keep it out of print.

MORDECAI RICHLER

interview, Brick 81, 1989


There is a part of me in every character, naturally. That's why novelists rarely write good autobiographies. You start one and it becomes another novel.

JOHN DOS PASSOS

New York Times, November 23, 1941


I want to be a writer you can always depend on for a good read during your vacation, during your flight, during a time in your life when you want to forget the world around you. The nicest notes I've received from readers are those that tell me I've gotten them back into reading for entertainment. For me, there is no greater compliment.

JEFF ABBOTT

Publisher's Weekly, May 30, 2011


My two fingers on a typewriter have never connected with my brain. My hand on a pen does. A fountain pen, of course. Ball-point pens are only good for filling out forms on a plane.

GRAHAM GREENE

International Herald Tribune, October 7, 1977


The economy of a novelist is a little like that of a careful housewife who is unwilling to throw away anything that might perhaps serve its turn. Perhaps the comparison is closer to the Chinese cook who leaves hardly any part of a duck unserved.

GRAHAM GREENE

from journal kept while writing A Burnt-Out Case


When I am working on a book or a story I write every morning as soon after first light as possible. There is no one to disturb you and it is cool or cold and you come to your work and warm as you write. You read what you have written and, as you always stop when you know what is going to happen next, you go on from there. You write until you come to a place where you still have your juice and know what will happen next and you stop and try to live through until the next day when you hit it again. You have started at six in the morning, say, and may go on until noon or be through before that. When you stop you are as empty, and at the same time never empty but filling, as when you have made love to someone you love. Nothing can hurt you, nothing can happen, nothing means anything until the next day when you do it again. It is the wait until the next day that is hard to get through.

ERNEST HEMINGWAY

The Paris Review, spring 1958


Every writer in the country can write a beautiful sentence, or a hundred. What I am interested in is the ugly sentence that is also somehow beautiful.

DONALD BARTHELME

"On Paraguay"

Tags: Donald Barthelme


Young writers if they are to mature require a period of between three and seven years in which to live down their promise. Promise is like the mediaeval hangman who after settling the noose, pushed his victim off the platform and jumped on his back, his weight acting a drop while his jockeying arms prevented the unfortunate from loosening the rope. When he judged him dead he dropped to the ground.

CYRIL CONNOLLY

Enemies of Promise