WRITING QUOTES XXXII

quotations about writing

I'm such a slow writer I have no need for anything as fast as a word processor. I don't need anything so snappy. I write so slowly that I could write in my own blood without hurting myself.

FRAN LEBOWITZ

The Paris Review, summer 1993


Everybody has a hard job. All real work is hard. My work happened also to be undoable. Morning after morning for 50 years, I faced the next page defenseless and unprepared. Writing for me was a feat of self-preservation. If I did not do it, I would die. So I did it. Obstinacy, not talent, saved my life.

PHILIP ROTH

"My Life as a Writer", New York Times, March 2, 2014


Why write it? I thought it would earn me money.

ROBERT REED

interview, Fantasy & Science Fiction, December 18, 2012


Some writers, of course, simply write, as they feel they are driven to do, by outer/inner inspirations. If, after the work is written and, hopefully, published, others respond -- that is the Champagne. But we, or some of us, don't write for the Champagne. We write because we write.

TANITH LEE

interview, Intergalactic Medicine Show

Tags: Tanith Lee


Writing in the first person can be claustrophobic--everything that happens in the book is notionally filtered through the narrator, and one can long for the fresh air of another perspective. One can luxuriate in the peculiar world of a character, but there are limitations. Ironizing that person's experience is difficult. You need perhaps a candid old friend of the narrator who can tell a few truths the narrator prefers to ignore.

ALAN HOLLINGHURST

The Paris Review, winter 2011

Tags: Alan Hollinghurst


You want to be a writer? Good for you. So does that guy. And that girl. And him. And her. And that old dude. And that young broad. And your neighbor. And your mailman. And that Chihuahua. And that copy machine. Ahead of you is an ocean of wannabe ink slaves and word earners. I don't say this to daunt you. Or to be dismissive. But you have to differentiate yourself, and the way you do that is by doing rather than pretending.

CHUCK WENDIG

The Kick-Ass Writer

Tags: Chuck Wendig


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


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

EDWARD ALBEE

The New York Times, September 18, 1966

Tags: Edward Albee


Every author has the whole past to contend with; all the centuries are upon him. He is compared with Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, Milton.

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

Table-Talk

Tags: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow


What I do as a writer, I work with situations, characters, certain situations and characters that appeal to me. And then, I try to imagine them and write the story that seems to flow from them. At a certain point, I can realize the themes are merging from this. But I never start from a thematic point of view, that I'm going to write about reinvention of self, identity, or any of these things. Usually, after the book is finished and I start talking about it, that it becomes analytical in that way. And in some ways it's a distortion of what the process has been, writing the book.

JEFFREY EUGENIDES

interview, 3 AM Magazine


At one time I used to keep notebooks with outlines for stories. But I found doing this somehow deadened the idea in my imagination. If the notion is good enough, if it truly belongs to you, then you can't forget it--it will haunt you till it's written.

TRUMAN CAPOTE

The Paris Review, spring-summer 1957

Tags: Truman Capote


The public takes from a writer, or a writing, what it needs and lets the remainder go. But what they take is usually what they need least and what they let go is what they need most.

CHARLES BUKOWSKI

Notes of a Dirty Old Man

Tags: Charles Bukowski


When I write, I don't know what is going to emerge. I begin in a condition of complete unknowing, an utter nakedness of concept or goal. A word appears, another word appears, an image. It is a moving into mystery.

JANE HIRSHFIELD

The Atlantic Online, September 18, 1997

Tags: Jane Hirshfield


The humorous story is told gravely; the teller does his best to conceal the fact that he even dimly suspects that there is anything funny about it.

MARK TWAIN

"How to Tell a Story"

Tags: Mark Twain


There are two kinds of characters in all fiction, the born and the synthetic. If the writer has to ask himself questions -- is he tall, is he short? -- he had better quit.

REX STOUT

The New York Times, November 15, 1953


Some writers love to boast that they can write anywhere: in a cafe, in a park -- some can probably write underwater in a cage with sharks circling. But again it smacks of the cultivated self-image. JK Rowling writing in a café with a baby = potential mythology? Hemingway famously claimed that he could create anywhere, explaining, "the only good place to work is your head" -- but we all know what he did to his head in the end.

ROSEMARY JENKINSON

"Writing is not about youth but about spark", Irish Times, March 27, 2017


You can only learn to be a better writer by actually writing. I don't know much about creative writing programs. But they're not telling the truth if they don't teach, one, that writing is hard work and, two, that you have to give up a great deal of life, your personal life, to be a writer.

DORIS LESSING

The New York Times, April 22, 1984


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

GAO XINGJIAN

Dialogue and Rebuttal


If you are to become a writer you'll have to stop fooling with words.

SHERWOOD ANDERSON

"The Teacher", Winesburg, Ohio

Tags: Sherwood Anderson


Many writers-in-waiting spend a lot of time avoiding the work at hand. The most common way to avoid writing is by procrastination. This is the writer's greatest enemy. There is little to say about it except that once you decide to write every day, you must make yourself sit at the desk or table for the required period whether or not you are putting down words. Make yourself take the time even if the hours seem fruitless. Ideally, after a few days or weeks of being chained to the desk, you will submit to the story that must be told.

WALTER MOSLEY

This Year You Write Your Novel