WRITING QUOTES XXXIII

quotations about writing

My method is to take the utmost trouble to find the right thing to say, and then to say it with the utmost levity.

GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

Answers to Nine Questions

Tags: George Bernard Shaw


When you're telling a story, you've got to give details.

GAO XINGJIAN

Dialogue and Rebuttal


Few sensible authors are happy discussing the creative process -- it is, after all, black magic, and may lose its power if we look that particular gift horse too closely in the mouth.

EDWARD ALBEE

introduction, Three Tall Women

Tags: Edward Albee


In writing, as in speaking, less is more. When you are editing -- which should be immediately after you finish the writing for one session and again at least a day or more after you finished it -- look over the piece with a critical eye and cut, cut, cut.

ALI MADEEH HASHMI

"The art of writing", The News on Sunday, March 11, 2017


A day in which I don't write leaves a taste of ashes.

SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR

attributed, Writers on Writing

Tags: Simone de Beauvoir


When you're writing, let's say, an essay for a magazine, you try to tell the truth at every moment. You do your best to quote people accurately and get everything right. Writing a novel is a break from that: freedom. When you're writing a novel, you are in charge; you can beef things up.

NICHOLSON BAKER

interview, Interview Magazine, September 16, 2013

Tags: Nicholson Baker


I've discovered that rejections are not altogether a bad thing. They teach a writer to rely on his own judgment and to say in his heart of hearts, "To hell with you."

SAUL BELLOW

attributed, Putting Your Passion Into Print


I write because I've always written, can't stop. I am a writing animal. The way a silk worm is a silk-producing animal.

DORIS LESSING

attributed, Shoptalk: Learning to Write with Writers

Tags: Doris Lessing


The great thing for me, now, is that writing has become more and more interesting. Not just as a craft but as a way into things that are not described. It's a thing of discovering. That's when writing is really working. You're on the trail of something and you don't quite know what it is.

SAM SHEPARD

The Observer, March 20, 2010


To me the question is always this: if a ray of light came out of the sky and said, "Your next book will never be published -- would you still write it?" If the answer is yes, the book is worth writing.

MARKUS ZUSAK

"Why I Write", The Guardian, March 28, 2008


I'm never lonely when I'm writing, because you live with the characters that are so alive in your mind. And you really see them and know them and get to be friends with them.

JULIE ANDREWS

interview, American Libraries Magazine

Tags: Julie Andrews


Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of--but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards.

ROBERT A. HEINLEIN

The Notebooks of Lazarus Long

Tags: Robert A. Heinlein