WRITING QUOTES XIII

quotations about writing


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My two fingers on a typewriter have never connected with my brain. My hand on a pen does. A fountain pen, of course. Ball-point pens are only good for filling out forms on a plane.

GRAHAM GREENE
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International Herald Tribune, October 7, 1977


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Occasionally, there arises a writing situation where you see an alternative to what you are doing, a mad, wild gamble of a way for handling something, which may leave you looking stupid, ridiculous or brilliant -- you just don't know which. You can play it safe there, too, and proceed along the route you'd mapped out for yourself. Or you can trust your personal demon who delivered that crazy idea in the first place. Trust your demon.

ROGER ZELAZNY

introduction, "Passion Play"

Tags: Roger Zelazny


The factors controlling a writer's popularity are as mysterious and ultimately as unknowable as the number of stars in the sky.

SAMUEL R. DELANY

interview, SF Site, April 2001

Tags: Samuel R. Delany


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


When I hear about some sensational new writer I sort of think, Shut up ... you've got to be around for a long time before you can really say you're a writer. You've got to stand the test of time, which is the only real test there is.

MARTIN AMIS

"The Past Gets Bigger and the Future Shrinks", Los Angeles Review of Books, July 21, 2013

Tags: Martin Amis


Writing a novel is like working on foreign policy. There are problems to be solved. It's not all inspirational.

JAMES M. CAIN

The Paris Review, spring-summer 1978


Everybody can write; writers can't do anything else.

MIGNON MCLAUGHLIN

The Complete Neurotic's Notebook

Tags: Mignon McLaughlin


Fiction writing is like duck hunting. You go to the right place at the right time with the right dog. You get into the water before dawn, wearing a little protective gear, then you stand behind some reeds and wait for the story to present itself. This is not to say you are passive. You choose the place and the day. You pick the gun and the dog. You have the desire to blow the duck apart for reasons that are entirely your own. But you have to be willing to accept not what you wanted to have happen, but what happens. You have to write the story you find in the circumstances you've created, because more often than not the ducks don't show up. The hunters in the next blind begin to argue, and you realize they're in love. You see a snake swimming in your direction. Your dog begins to shiver and whine, and you start to think about this gun that belonged to your father. By the time you get out of the marsh, you will have written a novel so devoid of ducks it will shock you.

ANN PATCHETT

What Now?

Tags: Ann Patchett


I can't avoid writing. It's a sort of nervous tic I have developed since I gave up needlepoint.

CLARE BOOTHE LUCE

"Fast and Luce", Vanity Fair, March 1988

Tags: Clare Boothe Luce


I write from a thorough conviction that it is the duty of me, and with the belief that, after every drawback and shortcoming, I do my best, all things considered--that is for me, and, so being, the not being listened to by one human creature would, I hope, in nowise affect me.

ROBERT BROWNING

letter to Elizabeth Barrett, February 11, 1845

Tags: Robert Browning


My gratitude for good writing is unbounded; I'm grateful for it the way I'm grateful for the ocean.

ANNE LAMOTT

Bird by Bird

Tags: Anne Lamott


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


The business of a novelist is, in my opinion, to create characters first and foremost, and then to set them in the snarl of the human currents of his time, so that there results an accurate permanent record of a phase of history.

JOHN DOS PASSOS

"The Business of a Novelist"


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


When I write, I write because a thing has to be done. I don't think a writer should meddle too much with his own work. He should let the work write itself.

JORGE LUIS BORGES

The Paris Review, winter-spring 1967


Write books only if you are going to say in them the things you would never dare confide to anyone.

EMIL CIORAN

The Trouble with Being Born

Tags: Emil Cioran


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


He that writes to himself, writes to an eternal public.

ELIZA COOK

Diamond Dust

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How hard is the destiny of a maker of books! He has to cut and sew up in order to make ideas follow logically. But when one writes a book on reverie, has the time not come to let the pen run, to let reverie speak, and better yet to dream the reverie at the same time one believes he is transcribing it?

GASTON BACHELARD

The Poetics of Reverie: Childhood, Language, and the Cosmos

Tags: Gaston Bachelard


I gotta pound the keys for the ideas to flow.

KIRBY LARSON

interview, Author Turf, March 6, 2014

Tags: Kirby Larson