WRITING QUOTES XIII

quotations about writing

He did not seem to know enough about the people in his novel. They did not seem to trust him.

JAMES BALDWIN

Another Country

Tags: James Baldwin


Writing is a part of healing, of digging into society.

KHALED KHALIFA

"Syrian novelist Khaled Khalifa tells the stories of a bleeding, beautiful country", Syria Direct, March 23, 2017


Once somebody's aware of a plot, it's like a bone sticking out. If it breaks through the skin, it's very ugly.

LOUIS AUCHINCLOSS

The Paris Review, fall 1994


I have feelings, but my pen cannot and will not write feelings; nay, my heart has no mind that can coin them into words.

LYMAN ABBOTT

Reminiscences

Tags: Lyman Abbott


I never had a plan, except to write. I love what I do, and have from the beginning. Loving what you do makes it a lot easier to work, every day, to face the tough spots and heel in for the long haul. Nothing against plans; they work for some people. But for me, if I'd been planning, worrying about numbers, trying to micro-manage my career, I wouldn't have focused on the writing. If you don't write, you're not read. If you're not read, you don't sell. So that's my Master Plan, I guess. Write the books, let the agent agent, the editor edit, the publisher publish.

NORA ROBERTS

interview, inReads, October 5, 2011


Writing can wreck your body. You sit there on the chair hour after hour and sweat your guts out to get a few words.

NORMAN MAILER

The New York Times, October 4, 2000


I think without writing I would feel completely useless.

SAM SHEPARD

The Observer, March 20, 2010

Tags: Sam Shepard


For me, everyone I write of is real. I have little true say in what they want, what they do or end up as (or in). Their acts appall, enchant, disgust or astound me. Their ends fill me with retributive glee, or break my heart. I can only take credit (if I can even take credit for that) in reporting the scenario. This is not a disclaimer. Just a fact.

TANITH LEE

interview, Innsmouth Free Press, November 17, 2009


The final lesson a writer learns is that everything can nourish the writer. The dictionary, a new word, a voyage, an encounter, a talk on the street, a book, a phrase learned.

ANAÏS NIN

attributed, French Writers of the Past


Write only of what is important and eternal.

ANTON CHEKHOV

The Seagull


Here are the two states in which you may exist: person who writes, or person who does not. If you write: you are a writer. If you do not write: you are not. Aspiring is a meaningless null state that romanticizes Not Writing. It's as ludicrous as saying, "I aspire to pick up that piece of paper that fell on the floor." Either pick it up or don't. I don’t want to hear about how your diaper's full. Take it off or stop talking about it.

CHUCK WENDIG

The Kick-Ass Writer


Usually, you don't know where a book comes from ... it's just there, some kind of an itch that you can't quite scratch.

CORMAC MCCARTHY

interview with Oprah Winfrey, June 1, 2008

Tags: Cormac McCarthy


Good writers define reality; bad ones merely restate it.

EDWARD ALBEE

Saturday Review, May 4, 1966


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


Just as the light and weightless vegetation of saltpeter floats over the old walls of houses as soon as the owner gets careless, so the literary vocation springs up in you.

FEDERICO GARCIA LORCA

letter to Jose Bello, summer 1925

Tags: Federico Garcia Lorca


Should novels generally be 600 pages? No, they should not. Half of writing, maybe 3/4 of writing, is editing. This seems to be a thing that has not gotten through to them. It's my impression that you could get rid of half of most of these books. These people are not good enough to be this long, but they're apparently also not good enough to be shorter.

FRAN LEBOWITZ

interview, Ruminator Magazine, August/September 2005

Tags: Fran Lebowitz


We writers don't really think about whether what we write is good or not. It's too much to worry about. We just put the words down, trying to get them right, operating by some inner sense of pitch and proportion, and from time to time, we stick the stuff in an envelope and ship it to an editor.

GARRISON KEILLOR

"Who Has Time to Be a Writer?", Salon, August 11, 1998

Tags: Garrison Keillor


Yet do not miss the moral, my good men.
For Saint Paul says that all that's written well
Is written down some useful truth to tell.
Then take the wheat and let the chaff lie still.

GEOFFREY CHAUCER

The Canterbury Tales

Tags: Geoffrey Chaucer


The only characters I've made to resemble real people have been grotesques.

GLEN COOK

interview, SF Site, September 2005

Tags: Glen Cook


The first paragraph. The last paragraph. That's where the story is going and how it's going to end. Or else you'll go off in a hundred different directions.

HUNTER S. THOMPSON

The Paris Review, fall 2000