WRITING QUOTES XVII

quotations about writing

I find writing extremely difficult. I usually have to drag myself to my desk, mainly because I doubt myself. And it's getting harder because I want to improve with every book. Sometimes I guess it's best just to forget there's an audience and just write like no one will ever read it at all.

MARKUS ZUSAK

"Why I Write", The Guardian, March 28, 2008


If there's a character type I despise, it's the all-capable, all-knowing, physically perfect protagonist. My idea of hell would be to be trapped in a four-hundred page, first-person, first-tense, running monologue with a character like that. I think writers who produce characters along those lines should graduate from high school and move on.

CRAIG JOHNSON

"A Conversation with Craig Johnson", The Cold Dish

Tags: Craig Johnson


All Writing Is Garbage. People who come out of nowhere to try to put into words any part of what goes on in their minds are pigs. The whole literary scene is a pigpen, especially today.

ANTONIN ARTAUD

Selected Writings

Tags: Antonin Artaud


The writer must believe that what he is doing is the most important thing in the world. And he must hold to this illusion even when he knows it is not true.

JOHN STEINBECK

New York Times, June 2, 1969

Tags: John Steinbeck


When I hear about some sensational new writer I sort of think, Shut up ... you've got to be around for a long time before you can really say you're a writer. You've got to stand the test of time, which is the only real test there is.

MARTIN AMIS

"The Past Gets Bigger and the Future Shrinks", Los Angeles Review of Books, July 21, 2013

Tags: Martin Amis


If it is a distinction to have written a good book, it is also a disgrace to have written a bad one.

CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE

Intuitions and Summaries of Thought

Tags: Christian Nestell Bovee


I'm not interested in writing for adults. I like them as people! I don't like the way they publish books in that world. Nothing ever gets a chance.

JOHN GREEN

Huffington Post, October 12, 2012


Most writer zombies don't realize they are the undead, because they do just enough to convince themselves (and others) that they are actual writers. They talk a lot about writing -- boy, are writer zombies great talkers -- going on for hours about the screenplay or pilot they're supposedly writing or will write once they have the time. They also read writing books and blogs and take seminars because that makes them feel like they are in the game. And they take classes, especially those that impose short-term deadlines, because that gets them writing, which makes them feel alive. But once the class is over, they almost always go back to their zombie ways.

COREY MANDELL

"Beware the Writing Zombies", Huffington Post, February 25, 2016


Writing is like hunting. There are brutally cold afternoons with nothing in sight, only the wind and your breaking heart. Then the moment when you bag something big.... This is a trophy brought back from the further realm, the kingdom of perpetual glistening night where we know ourselves absolutely. This one goes on the wall.

KATE BRAVERMAN

attributed, From Book to Bestseller


Writers cannot let themselves be servants of the official mythology. They have to, whatever the cost, say what truth they have to say.

TOBIAS WOLFF

Continuum, summer 1998

Tags: Tobias Wolff


I tend to be very much a planner. I mean obviously details veer in the telling all the time, that's clearly the case, but in terms of the broad architecture of a book I plot carefully and if things start to veer halfway through, I tend to stop and either pull them back on course, or if I realize they are going in a better direction, I extrapolate and work out what effect this is going to have further down. I am not one of these writers who is able to enjoy flying by the sit of my pants. And there's no value judgment there, incidentally. I am very well aware that some absolutely fantastic, wonderful writers do that. For me, no, I cannot do it. I have to plan quite meticulously.

CHINA MIÉVILLE

"In a Carapace of Light: A Conversation with China Miéville", Clarkesworld


My gratitude for good writing is unbounded; I'm grateful for it the way I'm grateful for the ocean.

ANNE LAMOTT

Bird by Bird

Tags: Anne Lamott


Nowadays three witty turns of phrase and a lie make a writer.

GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG

"Notebook D", Aphorisms

Tags: Georg Christoph Lichtenberg


I have friends, some of whom are spectacularly good writers, who really want someone to edit them. I don't register that impulse. It's like the impulse for wanting a dog.

FRAN LEBOWITZ

interview, A. V. Club, June 17, 2011

Tags: Fran Lebowitz


The purpose of a writer is to keep civilization from destroying itself.

ALBERT CAMUS

attributed, 2012: Waking of the Prophets

Tags: Albert Camus


I don't suppose a writing man ever really gets rid of his old crocus-yellow neckties. Sooner or later, I think, they show up in his prose, and there isn't a hell of a lot he can do about it.

J. D. SALINGER

"Seymour: An Introduction"

Tags: J. D. Salinger


Things that you write are in some degree autobiographical, but the first thing you find out about autobiography is that it's the hardest thing in the world to write. It's hard because it's very difficult to be absolutely factual about yourself. So ... when you write, you may draw on facts from your own life, but if their not in harmony with your story, they're worse than useless. You just stumble over them.

SAUL BELLOW

Q & A at Howard Community College, February 1986


The writer is delegated to declare and to celebrate man's proven capacity for greatness of heart and spirit -- for gallantry in defeat -- for courage, compassion and love. In the endless war against weakness and despair, these are the bright rally-flags of hope and of emulation.

JOHN STEINBECK

Nobel Prize acceptance speech, December 10, 1962


I really think that reading is just as important as writing when you're trying to be a writer. Because it's the only apprenticeship we have.

JOHN GREEN

"Nov. 26th: Writing Advice (And Notes on Surnameless Tiffany)", YouTube

Tags: John Green


While I am writing, the sea's roar is coming up to me, and I close my eyes. I am looking into an unborn and shapeless world that longs to be called to life and order, I am looking into a throng of phantoms of human forms which beckon me to conjure them and set them free: some of them tragic, some of them ridiculous, and some that are both at once.

THOMAS MANN

Tonio Kröger