quotations about writing
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
It is hard to make a good documentary about writing. Writing is internal, it slowly takes shape in a mind, sometimes after the not very cinematic process of staring at a wall until the words come.
JULIA COOPER
"Obit doc examines the art of the obituary at The New York Times", The Globe and Mail, March 30, 2017
Every word written is a net to catch the word that has escaped.
JEANETTE WINTERSON
The Stone Gods
When I start to write, I don't have any plan at all. I just wait for the story to come. I don't choose what kind of story it is or what's going to happen. I just wait.
HARUKI MURAKAMI
Paris Review, summer 2004
But most important of all is the structure of the incidents. For Tragedy is an imitation, not of men, but of an action and of life, and life consists in action.
ARISTOTLE
Poetics
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
So basically, it's totally selfish why I write. There are more harmful ways to spend your time, is how I justify it I guess. If my stories can make others laugh, or make others feel unexpected and complicated emotions, well then it's more than feeling good, then it's a bonus, then its rewarding, then you're building community.
TYLER BARTON
"Millennial Writers on Writing", Huffington Post, February 16, 2016
The writer's joy is the thought that can become emotion, the emotion that can wholly become a thought.
THOMAS MANN
Death in Venice
I hardly ever work from a synopsis -- I find they act like chains.
TANITH LEE
Realms of Fantasy, August 2009
You don't have to be a good person to be a good writer--history shows it's better if you're not--but you have to understand your badness.
PETER ABRAHAMS
End of Story
Fiction is the only way to redeem the formlessness of life.
MARTIN AMIS
Essays
What separates the professionally successful ... from all the rest is their ability to stay steady, to have stamina. It is one thing to write a good sentence, another to write a good book.
KATY LEDERER
interview, Identity Theory, February 12, 2005
The funny thing about writing is that whether you're doing it well or you're doing it poorly, it looks the exact same. That is actually one of the main ways that writing is different from ballet dancing.
JOHN GREEN
"July 19: A Day in the Life of a Writer (Who Has No Friends)", YouTube
The business of a novelist is, in my opinion, to create characters first and foremost, and then to set them in the snarl of the human currents of his time, so that there results an accurate permanent record of a phase of history.
JOHN DOS PASSOS
"The Business of a Novelist"
When asked for advice by beginners. Know your ending, I say, or the river of your story may finally sink into the desert sands and never reach the sea.
ISAAC ASIMOV
I, Asimov: A Memoir
No music. No rituals. At home I write in my office or on the laptop in the kitchen where our puppy likes to sleep, and I love his company. But I've trained myself to be able to work anywhere, and I write on trains, planes, in automobiles (if I'm not the driver), airports, hotel rooms. I travel often. If I couldn't write wherever I was I would get little done. I also can write in short bursts. Fifteen minutes are enough to move a story forward.
GAIL CARSON LEVINE
interview, Bookshop Talk, September 22, 2011
I've never written the things I'd like to write that I've admired all my life. Maybe one never does.
ELIZABETH BISHOP
Conversations with Elizabeth Bishop
I've come to believe that a huge part of getting better at writing is forcing yourself to see the things that have been in the corner of your eye all along. That means writing stories that include characters from other cultures and backgrounds--but also, being more open to other viewpoints in general. It also means interrogating all of your other lazy ideas and drilling into all of the "of courses" that you let yourself get away with.
CHARLIE JANE ANDERS
"The Single Most Important Thing You Can Do To Make Your Writing More Awesome", Gizmodo, February 25, 2016
Many writers are there that paint a stolen jade and sell it for a colt at the nearest fair.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
A writer is a reader moved to emulation.
SAUL BELLOW
attributed, The Hidden Writer