quotations about writing
If you want to write ... You must lurk in libraries and climb the stacks like ladders to sniff books like perfumes and wear books like hats upon your crazy heads.
RAY BRADBURY
attributed, Words from the Wise
My plots are always rudimentary. Whatever I've accomplished certainly does not depend on my virtuosity with plot. Generally I don't even have a plot. What happens is that my characters engage in an action, and out of that action little bits of plot sometimes adhere to the narrative. I never have to worry about lifting a plot, because I don't conceive of a book that way.
NORMAN MAILER
The Paris Review, winter-spring 1964
Writing is a tough thing and you only get better with practice. Just like free throws.
NICK WESTFALL
"Man writes directorial debut movie 'Finding Home'", myfox8, March 30, 2017
Everybody can write; writers can't do anything else.
MIGNON MCLAUGHLIN
The Complete Neurotic's Notebook
Much modern prose is praised for its terseness, its scrupulous avoidance of curlicue, etcetera. But I don't feel the deeper rhythm there. I don't think these writers are being terse out of choice. I think they are being terse because it's the only way they can write.
MARTIN AMIS
The Paris Review, spring 1998
The man, the writer, the instrument of the creation will die, but his creation does not die.
LUIGI PIRANDELLO
Six Characters in Search of an Author
It's a principle of mine to come into the story as late as possible, and to tell it as fast as you can.
JOHN LE CARRÉ
interview, The Paris Review, summer 1997
I tend to be a plotter, just because I do have to write an outline of the book for my publisher, and I like to have an idea of where I'm headed. That said, I don't treat the outline as cast in stone, and I often get better ideas as I write, so the outline is a living thing. What often drives change is when I start writing a particular character and she or he asserts themselves more strongly than I thought they would.
JEFF ABBOTT
"At the Mercy of Storytellers: MysteryPeople Q&A with Jeff Abbott", Mystery People, July 17, 2017
The trouble with writing fiction is that it has to make sense, whereas real life doesn't. It's incredibly annoying for us scribblers.
IAIN M. BANKS
"Iain Banks: The Final Interview", The Guardian, June 14, 2013
I think any start has to be a false start because really there's no way to start. You just have to force yourself to sit down and turn off the quality censor. And you have to keep the censor off, or you start second-guessing every other sentence. Sometimes the suspicion of a possible false start comes through, and you have to suppress it to keep writing. But it gets more persistent. And the moment you know it's really a false start is when you start ... it's hard to put into words.
ELIF BATUMAN
The Paris Review, winter 2012
Writers, especially when they act in a body and with one direction, have great influence on the public mind.
EDMUND BURKE
Reflections on the Revolution in France
Writing a killer first line to a novel is an art form in which there are a few masters and a great many apprentices.
CHUCK WENDIG
"25 Things to Know about Writing the First Chapter of Your Novel", Terrible Minds
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
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
Crossing out is an art that is, perhaps, even more difficult than writing. It requires the sharpest eye to decide what is superfluous and must be removed. And it requires ruthlessness toward yourself -- the greatest ruthlessness and self-sacrifice. You must know how to sacrifice parts in the name of the whole.
YEVGENY ZAMYATIN
Theme and Plot
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
When I write I don't aim to shock people, and I'm surprised when I do. But I don't think that anything that occurs in life should be omitted from art, though the artist should present it in a fashion that is artistic and not ugly. I set out to tell the truth. And sometimes the truth is shocking.
TENNESSEE WILLIAMS
The Paris Review, fall 1981
Now, writing every day, and being paid for it and encouraged to do it, it was as if, in the midst of the clichéd dark and stormy night, I found the magical inn, its windows golden lit, and Summer was due to start tomorrow. I can only work at one thing well. Deprive me of that, and my "back-up plan," even now, will be the empty, stormy, darkened heath -- where, incidentally, even unpublished, somehow I'll still be writing.
TANITH LEE
interview, Intergalactic Medicine Show
A person is a fool to become a writer. His only compensation is absolute freedom. He has no master except his own soul, and that, I am sure, is why he does it.
ROALD DAHL
Boy
I've got splinters in my nose from the best publishing doors in town.
RITA MAE BROWN
interview, Time, March 18, 2008