WRITING QUOTES XXVIII

quotations about writing

I think it's bad to talk about one's present work, for it spoils something at the root of the creative act. It discharges the tension.

NORMAN MAILER

attributed, The Writer's Quotation Book


I realized that I wanted to be a writer. But I wasn't sure I would be until I was fifteen or so. At that time I had immodestly started sending stories to magazines and literary quarterlies. Of course no writer ever forgets his first acceptance; but one fine day when I was seventeen, I had my first, second, and third, all in the same morning's mail. Oh, I'm here to tell you, dizzy with excitement is no mere phrase!

TRUMAN CAPOTE

The Paris Review, spring-summer 1957


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 can't write five words but that I change seven.

DOROTHY PARKER

The Paris Review, summer 1956


How one writes is a bit of a mystery to oneself. You just do it. My experience is that I sit down and write and I make it sound right to me, or sound good or interesting. And that's it.

ADAM PHILLIPS

"Poetry as Therapy", The Guardian, March 29, 2012

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I don't think I'm cut out for a job where you have to look professionally tidy. I prefer working in my pajamas and taking showers after lunch.

KELLY LINK

"Words by Flashlight", Sybil's Garage, June 7, 2006

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The pen is mightier than the sword.

EDWARD BULWER LYTTON

Richelieu

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I believe the most intricate plot won't matter much to readers if they don't care about the characters, especially in a series. So I try to focus hard on making each character, whether villain or hero, have an interesting flaw that readers can relate to.

JEFF ABBOTT

Publisher's Weekly, May 30, 2011


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

EUDORA WELTY

On Writing

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What bothers most critics of my work is the goofiness. One reviewer said I need to make up my mind if want to be funny or serious. My response is that I will make up my mind when God does, because life is a commingling of the sacred and the profane, good and evil. To try and separate them is fallacy.

TOM ROBBINS

"In the Creative Process with Tom Robbins; Perfect Sentences, Imperfect Universe", New York Times, December 30, 1993


The good writers touch life often. The mediocre ones run a quick hand over her. The bad ones rape her and leave her for the flies.

RAY BRADBURY

Fahrenheit 451


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

RITA MAE BROWN

interview, Time, March 18, 2008

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In the mental disturbance and effort of writing, what sustains you is the certainty that on every page there is something left unsaid.

CESARE PAVESE

This Business of Living, May 4, 1942

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Go to any lengths to avoid preachiness! If you have to choose between the message and the story, always choose the story.

ELIZABETH ZELVIN

interview, The Fix

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Writing is a solitary pursuit and I think you have to be partially at peace with yourself, but it's the other part that's usually producing the stuff worth reading.

CRAIG JOHNSON

"A Conversation with Craig Johnson", The Cold Dish

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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


The old, slow, creaking descriptions are a thing of the past; today the rule is brevity -- but every word must be supercharged, high-voltage.

YEVGENY ZAMYATIN

A Soviet Heretic

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Brevity is the sister of talent.

ANTON CHEKHOV

letter to A. P. Chekhov, April 11, 1889

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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


The most common human act that writing a novel resembles is lying. The working novelist lies daily, very complexly, and at great length.

WILLIAM GIBSON

Twitter post, May 31, 2009

Tags: William Gibson