WRITING QUOTES III
quotations about writing
Writing has freed me from the despair of living.
ANITA BROOKNER
The Paris Review, fall 1987
After I write, I have nothing to say. The commentary afterwards is superfluous. I write. And that's enough.
YASMINA REZA
"Celebrated Playwright Who Resists Celebrity", The New York Times, May 24, 2011
In writing ... remember that the biggest stories are not written about wars, or about politics, or even murders. The biggest stories are written about the things which draw human beings closer together.
SUSAN GLASPELL
Little Masks
I was always a believer, even with word processing, that there's something useful about having to retrace your steps from the beginning. And you have to print it out, too--you only get so far if you work by staring at a screen, because the resolution of the paper page is much higher. Your eye actually takes in things on paper more efficiently. I can fiddle around with something on a screen for days and think I'm getting somewhere, and it won't be right. Then I'll print it out and take it to bed, and instantly it's obvious what's bad about it, and I'll cross out, cross out, cross out.
NICHOLSON BAKER
The Paris Review, fall 2011
In writing, it would help a lot if we had some intermediate punctuation marks to indicate soft questions, soft exclamations, and different inflection in dialogue. But we just don't. And question marks and exclamation marks can jar a reader unnecessarily.
ANNE RICE
interview, The Huffington Post, October 15, 2013
There was a kind of poetry I was seeking in my prose, word to be laid against word in just a certain way, a kind of word color, a march of words and sentences, the color to be squeezed out of simple words, simple sentence construction.
SHERWOOD ANDERSON
Memoirs
With a practice of writing comes a certain important integrity. A culture filled with bloggers thinks differently about politics or public affairs, if only because more have been forced through the discipline of showing in writing why A leads to B.
LAWRENCE LESSIG
Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy
The writer should never be ashamed of staring. There is nothing that does not require his attention.
FLANNERY O'CONNOR
attributed, Room to Write: Daily Invitations to a Writer's Life
It's hard work, writing, you know. Honestly, a fight every day against your own limitations. You have to squeeze books out of your brain, you're constantly trying to solve challenges. I think most writers enjoy the feeling of having written something, rather than the process of writing it.
CARLOS RUIZ ZAFON
"Carlos Ruiz Zafon's love letter to literature", New Zealand Listener, March 14, 2013
In his prime the Hollywood screenwriter was one of the tragic figures of our age, evoking the special anguish that arises from feeling sorry for oneself while making large amounts of money.
J. G. BALLARD
A User's Guide to the Millennium
Writing is a profession you can practice while upside down and experiencing total blackout in a cave. You just use the mental recorder instead of pen and paper ... or portable ... and hope you find a use for the experience.
C. J. CHERRYH
interview, SFF World, January 1, 2000
A writer's greatest pleasure is revealing to people things they knew but did not know they knew. Or did not realize everyone else knew, too. This produces a warm sense of fellow feeling and is the best a writer can do.
ANDY ROONEY
"A Few Words from Andy Rooney: A Face of America Commentary"
If you will describe the people--nay, if you will write for the people, you must be one of the people.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Literary Studies
Whoop! 6K words, 21 pages, and 8 miles on the treadmill -- DONE! #ProductiveDay #LetThereBeIceCream
VICTORIA LAURIE
Twitter post, December 21, 2014
You don't start out writing good stuff. You start out writing crap and thinking it's good stuff, and then gradually you get better at it. That's why I say one of the most valuable traits is persistence. It's just so easy to give up!
OCTAVIA E. BUTLER
Locus Magazine, June 2000
I don't give a damn what other people think. It's entirely their own business. I'm not writing for other people.
HAROLD PINTER
interview, December 1971
Here's a news flash--writers are selfish people. Truth is, creative types like me are driven by one impulse--to make up a world in which we get to control everything and everyone. We decide who enters and who exits, what the weather will be, who will hook up with whom, who will win and who will lose. It makes us feel powerful and, in all honesty, has relatively little to do with thinking about what will make anyone else happy.
VICTORIA LAURIE
acknowledgements, What's A Ghoul to Do?
If I've already figured out how the book ends, why bother to finish writing it? My writing isn't terribly efficient, because I often have to backtrack a bit when I change my mind, but I like the sense of discovery that comes from not knowing what happens next.
PATRICIA BRIGGS
interview, Bitten by Books, March 30, 2010
Let us not, then, lament over the decay and oblivion into which ancient writers descend; they do but submit to the great law of nature, which declares that all sublunary shapes of matter shall be limited in their duration, but which decrees, also, that their elements and vegetable life, passes away, but the vital principle is transmitted to posterity, and the species continue to flourish. Thus, also, do authors beget authors, and having produced a numerous progeny, in a good old age they sleep with their fathers, that is to say, with the authors who preceded them--and from whom they had stolen.
WASHINGTON IRVING
"The Art of Book-Making", The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon
I believe the first story I ever wrote was about a young girl who was terribly mistreated by her very cruel parents, and one day the girl fled to the woods to live amongst a pack of wolves. Hey, I was eleven, loved wolves, and had been grounded for what I felt was a minor infraction. Can you blame me?
VICTORIA LAURIE
Relate Magazine, April 1, 2011