WRITING QUOTES XXVI

quotations about writing


Notice: Undefined variable: id in /hermes/walnacweb03/walnacweb03ak/b2149/pow.notablequote/htdocs/w/includes/quoter_subj.php on line 27

I've always considered writing the most hateful kind of work. I suspect it's a bit like f***ing -- which is fun only for amateurs. Old whores don't do much giggling.

HUNTER S. THOMPSON
Notice: Undefined variable: id in /hermes/walnacweb03/walnacweb03ak/b2149/pow.notablequote/htdocs/w/includes/quoter_subj.php on line 37

The Great Shark Hunt: Strange Tales from a Strange Time


Notice: Undefined variable: id in /hermes/walnacweb03/walnacweb03ak/b2149/pow.notablequote/htdocs/w/includes/quoter_subj.php on line 63

Tags: Hunter S. Thompson


Much modern prose is praised for its terseness, its scrupulous avoidance of curlicue, etcetera. But I don't feel the deeper rhythm there. I don't think these writers are being terse out of choice. I think they are being terse because it's the only way they can write.

MARTIN AMIS

The Paris Review, spring 1998


I hate writing. I so intensely hate writing -- I cannot tell you how much. The moment I am at the end of one project I have the idea that I didn't really succeed in telling what I wanted to tell, that I need a new project -- it's an absolute nightmare. But my whole economy of writing is in fact based on an obsessional ritual to avoid the actual act of writing.

SLAVOJ ZIZEK

Conversations with Zizek

Tags: Slavoj Zizek


There is absolutely everything in great fiction but a clear answer.

EUDORA WELTY

On Writing

Tags: Eudora Welty


Now, writing every day, and being paid for it and encouraged to do it, it was as if, in the midst of the clichéd dark and stormy night, I found the magical inn, its windows golden lit, and Summer was due to start tomorrow. I can only work at one thing well. Deprive me of that, and my "back-up plan," even now, will be the empty, stormy, darkened heath -- where, incidentally, even unpublished, somehow I'll still be writing.

TANITH LEE

interview, Intergalactic Medicine Show

Tags: Tanith Lee


Failure has been my best friend as a writer. It tests you, to see if you have what it takes to see it through.

MARKUS ZUSAK

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


Every character is an extension of the author's own personality.

EDWARD ALBEE

The New York Times, September 18, 1966

Tags: Edward Albee


Writing is like hunting. There are brutally cold afternoons with nothing in sight, only the wind and your breaking heart. Then the moment when you bag something big.... This is a trophy brought back from the further realm, the kingdom of perpetual glistening night where we know ourselves absolutely. This one goes on the wall.

KATE BRAVERMAN

attributed, From Book to Bestseller


Madness is terrific I can assure you, and not to be sniffed at; and in its lava I still find most of the things I write about. It shoots out of one everything shaped, final, not in mere driblets, as sanity does.

VIRGINIA WOOLF

Letters

Tags: Virginia Woolf


Writing is a job, a talent, but it's also the place to go in your head. It is the imaginary friend you drink your tea with in the afternoon.

ANN PATCHETT

Truth and Beauty

Tags: Ann Patchett


All stories are about wolves. All worth repeating, that is. Anything else is sentimental drivel.

MARGARET ATWOOD

The Blind Assassin

Tags: Margaret Atwood


Publishing is a terrible invasion of my privacy. I like to write. I live to write. But I write just for myself and my own pleasure.

J. D. SALINGER

attributed, Salinger: A Biography


Genre categories are irrelevant. I dislike them, but I do not have the casting vote. Writing is writing and stories are stories. Perhaps the only true genres are fiction and non-fiction. And even there, who can be sure?

TANITH LEE

Tabula Rasa, October 1994


What you're trying to do when you write is to crowd the reader out of his own space and occupy it with yours, in a good cause. You're trying to take over his sensibility and deliver an experience that moves from mere information.

ROBERT STONE

The Paris Review, winter 1985

Tags: Robert Stone


I've got splinters in my nose from the best publishing doors in town.

RITA MAE BROWN

interview, Time, March 18, 2008

Tags: Rita Mae Brown


Why do you keep reading a book? Usually to find out what happens. Why do you give up and stop reading it? There may be lots of reasons. But often the answer is you don't care what happens. So what makes the difference between caring and not caring? The author's cruelty. And the reader's sympathy ... it takes a mean author to write a good story.

GAIL CARSON LEVINE

Writing Magic

Tags: Gail Carson Levine


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 can be compared to a well. There are as many kinds of wells as there are writers. The important thing is to have good water in the well, and it is better to take a regular amount out than to pump the well dry and wait for it to refill.

ERNEST HEMINGWAY

The Paris Review, spring 1958


I didn't want to be ignored. I didn't want my books to be ignored. But I didn't really care to cut such a figure either because ... well, it interferes with the business of writing.

SAUL BELLOW

Q & A at Howard Community College, February 1986


A novel is balanced between a few true impressions and the multitude of false ones that make up most of what we call life.

SAUL BELLOW

Nobel lecture, December 12, 1976