quotations about writing
What I had to face, the very bitter lesson that everyone who wants to write has got to learn, was that a thing may in itself be the finest piece of writing one has ever done, and yet have absolutely no place in the manuscript one hopes to publish.
THOMAS WOLFE
Selections from the Works of Thomas Wolfe
When I write, I feel like an armless, legless man with a crayon in his mouth.
KURT VONNEGUT
attributed, The Biteback Dictionary of Humorous Literary Quotations
When you finish one book, you don't want to just write the same book again.
JEFFREY EUGENIDES
Slate, October 10, 2011
When you invent something, you're drawing on reservoirs of knowledge that you already have. It's only when you're faithful to the truth that something can come to you from the outside.
ELIF BATUMAN
interview, The Rumpus, April 25, 2012
Writing by hand, mouthing by mouth: in each case you get a very strong physical sense of the emergence of language--squeezed out like a well-formed stool--what satisfaction! what bliss!
WILLIAM H. GASS
The Paris Review, summer 1977
All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence you know.
ERNEST HEMINGWAY
A Moveable Feast
Each book starts from ashes.
PHILIP ROTH
interview with Cynthia Haven, "The Book Haven"
Every writer in the country can write a beautiful sentence, or a hundred. What I am interested in is the ugly sentence that is also somehow beautiful.
DONALD BARTHELME
"On Paraguay"
I want to be a writer you can always depend on for a good read during your vacation, during your flight, during a time in your life when you want to forget the world around you. The nicest notes I've received from readers are those that tell me I've gotten them back into reading for entertainment. For me, there is no greater compliment.
JEFF ABBOTT
Publisher's Weekly, May 30, 2011
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
International Herald Tribune, October 7, 1977
The economy of a novelist is a little like that of a careful housewife who is unwilling to throw away anything that might perhaps serve its turn. Perhaps the comparison is closer to the Chinese cook who leaves hardly any part of a duck unserved.
GRAHAM GREENE
from journal kept while writing A Burnt-Out Case
The novelist is like the conductor of an orchestra, his back to the audience, his face invisible, summoning the experience of music for the people he cannot see. The writer as conductor also gets to compose the music and play all of the instruments, a task less formidable than it seems. What it requires is the conscious practice of providing an extraordinary experience for the reader, who should be oblivious to the fact that he is seeing words on paper.
SOL STEIN
Stein on Writing
There is probably no hell for authors in the next world--they suffer so much from critics and publishers in this.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
To me, writing is not a profession. You might as well call living a profession. Or having children. Anything you can't help doing.
VICKI BAUM
I Know What I'm Worth
To those who no longer have a homeland, writing becomes home.
THEODOR W. ADORNO
Minima Moralia
Writing is a concentrated form of thinking. I don't know what I think about certain subjects, even today, until I sit down and try to write about them.
DON DELILLO
Conversations with Don DeLillo
You grow a whole lot more as a writer by getting old stories out of the house and letting new ones come in and live with you until they grow up and are ready to go. Don't let the old ones stay there and grow fat and cranky and eat all the food out of the refrigerator. You have dozens of generations of stories inside you, but the only way to make room for the new ones is to write the old ones and mail them off.
ORSON SCOTT CARD
How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy
Young writers if they are to mature require a period of between three and seven years in which to live down their promise. Promise is like the mediaeval hangman who after settling the noose, pushed his victim off the platform and jumped on his back, his weight acting a drop while his jockeying arms prevented the unfortunate from loosening the rope. When he judged him dead he dropped to the ground.
CYRIL CONNOLLY
Enemies of Promise
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
Many writers are there that paint a stolen jade and sell it for a colt at the nearest fair.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought