WRITING QUOTES XXIX

quotations about writing

Show people your stuff, listen carefully to their responses, but ultimately don't value anyone's opinion above your own. Be influenced by writers you dislike as well as writers you like. Read their stuff to figure out what's wrong. Find a balance between the confidence that allows you continue, and the self-critical facility that enables you to improve. Get the balance wrong on either side, and you're screwed.

ALEX GARLAND

interview with Dennis Widmyer, July 30, 2007

Tags: Alex Garland


When I sit down to write, I have a lot to write, but beforehand, I don't. I'm not full of ideas. Writing is the way I think.

ADAM PHILLIPS

Bomb Magazine, fall 2010


As the deadline looms, my quality of writing is in danger of declining all because I just had to check my email.

GERI SPIELER

"The Dangers of Distracted Writing", Huffington Post, February 28, 2016


I've heard writers talk about "discovering a voice," but for me that wasn't a problem. There were so many voices that I didn't know where to start.

SAM SHEPARD

The Paris Review

Tags: Sam Shepard


I can't write five words but that I change seven.

DOROTHY PARKER

The Paris Review, summer 1956


I don't think I'm cut out for a job where you have to look professionally tidy. I prefer working in my pajamas and taking showers after lunch.

KELLY LINK

"Words by Flashlight", Sybil's Garage, June 7, 2006

Tags: Kelly Link


In utter loneliness a writer tries to explain the inexplicable.

JOHN STEINBECK

New York Times, June 2, 1969


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

Tags: William Gibson


Fundamentally, all writing is about the same thing. It's about dying, about the brief flicker of time we have here, and the frustration it creates.

MORDECAI RICHLER

attributed, Mordecai & Me


What bothers most critics of my work is the goofiness. One reviewer said I need to make up my mind if want to be funny or serious. My response is that I will make up my mind when God does, because life is a commingling of the sacred and the profane, good and evil. To try and separate them is fallacy.

TOM ROBBINS

"In the Creative Process with Tom Robbins; Perfect Sentences, Imperfect Universe", New York Times, December 30, 1993


Writing sets off a spark in my heart, and I'm going to start a fire.

TIFFANY FERENTINI

"Millennial Writers on Writing", Huffington Post, February 16, 2016


One writes out of one thing only--one's own experience. Everything depends on how relentlessly one forces from this experience the last drop, sweet or bitter, it can possibly give.

JAMES BALDWIN

Notes of a Native Son

Tags: James Baldwin


The true alchemists do not change lead into gold; they change the world into words.

WILLIAM H. GASS

A Temple of Texts

Tags: William H. Gass


Belief in one's identity as a poet or writer prior to the acid test of publication is as naïve and harmless as the youthful belief in one's immortality ... and the inevitable disillusionment is just as painful.

DAN SIMMONS

Hyperion


Publishing is a terrible invasion of my privacy. I like to write. I live to write. But I write just for myself and my own pleasure.

J. D. SALINGER

attributed, Salinger: A Biography


I want to be the apostle of self destruction. I want my book to affect man's reason, his emotions, his nerves, his whole animal nature. I should like my book to make people turn pale with horror as they read it, to affect them like a drug, like a terrifying dream, to drive them mad, to make them curse and hate me but still to read me.

LEONID ANDREYEV

diary, August 1, 1891

Tags: Leonid Andreyev


Pay attention only to the form; emotion will come spontaneously to inhabit it. A perfect dwelling always finds an inhabitant. The artist's business is to build the dwelling; as for the inhabitant, it is up to the reader to provide him.

ANDRE GIDE

Pretexts: Reflections on Literature and Morality

Tags: André Gide


In the writing process, the more the story cooks, the better. The brain works for you even when you are at rest. I find dreams particularly useful. I myself think a great deal before I go to sleep and the details sometimes unfold in the dream.

DORIS LESSING

The New York Times, April 22, 1984


Go to any lengths to avoid preachiness! If you have to choose between the message and the story, always choose the story.

ELIZABETH ZELVIN

interview, The Fix

Tags: Elizabeth Zelvin


I've got splinters in my nose from the best publishing doors in town.

RITA MAE BROWN

interview, Time, March 18, 2008

Tags: Rita Mae Brown