WRITING QUOTES X

quotations about writing

Maybe everyone does have a novel in them, perhaps even a great one. I don't believe it, but for the purposes of this argument, let's say it's so. Only a few of us are going to be willing to break our own hearts by trading in the living beauty of imagination for the stark disappointment of words. This is why we type a line or two and then hit the delete button or crumple up the page. Certainly that was not what I meant to say! That does not represent what I see. Maybe I should try again another time. Maybe the muse has stepped out back for a smoke. Maybe I have writer's block. Maybe I'm an idiot and was never meant to write at all.

ANN PATCHETT

The Getaway Car


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


Great novelists are philosopher-novelists who write in images instead of arguments.

ALBERT CAMUS

The Myth of Sisyphus


If there's a character type I despise, it's the all-capable, all-knowing, physically perfect protagonist. My idea of hell would be to be trapped in a four-hundred page, first-person, first-tense, running monologue with a character like that. I think writers who produce characters along those lines should graduate from high school and move on.

CRAIG JOHNSON

"A Conversation with Craig Johnson", The Cold Dish

Tags: Craig Johnson


I like what I do. Some writers have said in print that they hated writing and it was just a chore and a burden. I certainly don't feel that way about it. Sometimes it's difficult. You know, you always have this image of the perfect thing which you can never achieve, but which you never stop trying to achieve. But I think ... that's your signpost and your guide. You'll never get there, but without it you won't get anywhere.

CORMAC MCCARTHY

interview with Oprah Winfrey, June 1, 2008


To string incongruities and absurdities together in a wandering and sometimes purposeless way, and seem innocently unaware that they are absurdities, is the basis of the American art, if my position is correct.

MARK TWAIN

"How to Tell a Story"

Tags: Mark Twain


I'm not interested in writing for adults. I like them as people! I don't like the way they publish books in that world. Nothing ever gets a chance.

JOHN GREEN

Huffington Post, October 12, 2012


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


It's very unlikely that a writer is going to make a living by writing. So then the question is: how do you balance work, life, and writing? If you find out, please tell me.

KELLY LINK

interview, Apex Magazine, July 2, 2013

Tags: Kelly Link


Writing books is the closest men ever come to childbearing.

NORMAN MAILER

The New York Times Book Review, September 17, 1965

Tags: Norman Mailer


We all often feel like we are pulling teeth, even those writers whose prose ends up being the most natural and fluid. The right words and sentences just do not come pouring out like ticker tape most of the time.

ANNE LAMOTT

Bird by Bird

Tags: Anne Lamott


The writer's joy is the thought that can become emotion, the emotion that can wholly become a thought.

THOMAS MANN

Death in Venice

Tags: Thomas Mann


All writing, all art, is an act of faith. If one tries to contribute to human understanding, how can that be called decadent? It's like saying a declaration of love is an act of decadence. Any work of art, provide it springs from a sincere motivation to further understanding between people, is an act of faith and therefore is an act of love.

TRUMAN CAPOTE

Truman Capote: Conversations

Tags: Truman Capote


WHEN YOU LEAVE YOUR TYPEWRITER YOU LEAVE YOUR MACHINE GUN AND THE RATS COME POURING THROUGH.

CHARLES BUKOWSKI

Notes of a Dirty Old Man

Tags: Charles Bukowski


Writing is therapy. It's so relieving. I can be super overwhelmed with life and work or whatever is going on and I can take 10 or 15 minutes out of the day to put all of the thoughts I'm having out on paper. Not all the time the person I can talk to and not judge me. Writing and my journals are my best friend.

DELICIA RASHAD

"Local Poet Releases Latest Book on Life, Love and Tea", San Diego Voice and Viewpoint, March 30, 2017


Oh, I've discarded a great many [poems]. And occasionally I've discarded and then resurrected. I would find a crumpled yellow ball of paper in the wastebasket, in the morning, and open it to see what the hell I'd been up to; and occasionally it was something that needed only a very slight change to be brought off, which I'd missed the day before.

CONRAD AIKEN

interview, The Paris Review, winter-spring 1968

Tags: Conrad Aiken


The writer is often faced with two choices--turn away from the reality of life's intimidating complexity or conquer its mystery by battling with it. The writer who chooses the former soon runs out of energy and produces elegantly tired fiction.

CHINUA ACHEBE

There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra


The art of writing is not, as many seem to imagine, the art of bringing fine phrases into rhythmical order, but the art of placing before the reader intelligible symbols of the thoughts and feelings in the writer's mind.

GEORGE HENRY LEWES

The Principles of Success in Literature

Tags: George Henry Lewes


This is a slow business to have success in. There are exceptions, but for the most part it's kind of like the last writer standing.... I've got gray. I've got plenty of gray. I'm creating a career slowly, like a coral reef.

ROBERT REED

Lincoln Journal Star, January 11, 2004

Tags: Robert Reed


The first forms of writing emerged not for art, literature, or love, not for spiritual or liturgical purposes, but for business--all literature could be said to originate from sales receipts (sorry).

DANIEL J. LEVITIN

The Organized Mind

Tags: Daniel J. Levitin