WRITING QUOTES VIII

quotations about writing

I've been to a lot of places and done a lot of things, but writing was always first. It's a kind of pain I can't do without.

ROBERT PENN WARREN

National Observer, March 12, 1977

Tags: Robert Penn Warren


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


Novels are like paintings, specifically watercolors. Every stroke you put down you have to go with. Of course you can rewrite, but the original strokes are still there in the texture of the thing.

JOAN DIDION

The Paris Review, spring 2006


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


Prison always has been a good place for writers, killing, as it does, the twin demons of mobility and diversion.

DAN SIMMONS

Hyperion

Tags: Dan Simmons


The writer's joy is the thought that can become emotion, the emotion that can wholly become a thought.

THOMAS MANN

Death in Venice

Tags: Thomas Mann


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


All stories must end so, with the next tale winking out of the corners of the last pages, promising more, promising moonlight and dancing and revels, if only you will come back when spring comes again.

CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making


He who will not listen to any advice, nor be corrected in his writings, is a rank pedant.

JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE

"Of Works of the Mind", Les Caractères

Tags: Jean de La Bruyère


I have not felt in a humor to entertain you if I had taken up my pen. Perhaps some unbecoming invective might have fallen from it.

ABIGAIL ADAMS

letter to John Adams, May 7, 1776

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No music. No rituals. At home I write in my office or on the laptop in the kitchen where our puppy likes to sleep, and I love his company. But I've trained myself to be able to work anywhere, and I write on trains, planes, in automobiles (if I'm not the driver), airports, hotel rooms. I travel often. If I couldn't write wherever I was I would get little done. I also can write in short bursts. Fifteen minutes are enough to move a story forward.

GAIL CARSON LEVINE

interview, Bookshop Talk, September 22, 2011

Tags: Gail Carson Levine


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 art of writing is not, as many seem to imagine, the art of bringing fine phrases into rhythmical order, but the art of placing before the reader intelligible symbols of the thoughts and feelings in the writer's mind.

GEORGE HENRY LEWES

The Principles of Success in Literature

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To write as if your life depended on it; to write across the chalkboard, putting up there in public the words you have dredged; sieved up in dreams, from behind screen memories, out of silence--words you have dreaded and needed in order to know you exist.

ADRIENNE RICH

What Is Found There: Notebooks on Poetry and Politics

Tags: Adrienne Rich


We all often feel like we are pulling teeth, even those writers whose prose ends up being the most natural and fluid. The right words and sentences just do not come pouring out like ticker tape most of the time.

ANNE LAMOTT

Bird by Bird

Tags: Anne Lamott


Writers, like teeth, are divided into incisors and grinders.

WALTER BAGEHOT

Estimates of Some Englishmen and Scotchmen

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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


After all, the original way of writing books may turn out to be the best. The first author, it is plain, could not have taken anything from books, since there were no books for him to copy from; he looked at things for himself.

WALTER BAGEHOT

Literary Studies

Tags: Walter Bagehot


Every writer is an iron-monger that melts down old junk into new steel.

AUSTIN O'MALLEY

Keystones of Thought

Tags: Austin O'Malley


Fiction is based on reality unless you're a fairy-tale artist, you have to get your knowledge of life from somewhere. You have to know the material you're writing about before you alter it.

HUNTER S. THOMPSON

interview, Associated Press, 2003