WRITING QUOTES VII

quotations about writing

Writing is therapy. It's so relieving. I can be super overwhelmed with life and work or whatever is going on and I can take 10 or 15 minutes out of the day to put all of the thoughts I'm having out on paper. Not all the time the person I can talk to and not judge me. Writing and my journals are my best friend.

DELICIA RASHAD

"Local Poet Releases Latest Book on Life, Love and Tea", San Diego Voice and Viewpoint, March 30, 2017


I'm glad that I didn't have the Internet when I started writing. I started writing when I was 20 and didn't show a word of it to anyone until I was 28. I had the sense to keep it to myself. Now the temptation with blogs and such, they're just getting it out there; maybe it would have been best to keep it to themselves.

DAVID SEDARIS

interview, Bohemian, June 2009


I think a good writer is a mix of confidence (sure that what they're writing is going to appeal to their readers) and uncertainty (what if all these words are crap?). If you're too confident, you get an attitude that seeps through into your writing, affecting the characters and the story. If you're too uncertain, you'll never finish anything.

CHARLES DE LINT

interview with Kim Antieau, April 28, 2008

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WHEN YOU LEAVE YOUR TYPEWRITER YOU LEAVE YOUR MACHINE GUN AND THE RATS COME POURING THROUGH.

CHARLES BUKOWSKI

Notes of a Dirty Old Man

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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

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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


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"

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What separates the professionally successful ... from all the rest is their ability to stay steady, to have stamina. It is one thing to write a good sentence, another to write a good book.

KATY LEDERER

interview, Identity Theory, February 12, 2005

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There is a part of me in every character, naturally. That's why novelists rarely write good autobiographies. You start one and it becomes another novel.

JOHN DOS PASSOS

New York Times, November 23, 1941


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


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


Writing a novel is a terrible experience, during which the hair often falls out and the teeth decay. I'm always irritated by people who imply that writing fiction is an escape from reality. It is a plunge into reality and it's very shocking to the system.

FLANNERY O'CONNOR

Mystery and Manners


When I am working on a book or a story I write every morning as soon after first light as possible. There is no one to disturb you and it is cool or cold and you come to your work and warm as you write. You read what you have written and, as you always stop when you know what is going to happen next, you go on from there. You write until you come to a place where you still have your juice and know what will happen next and you stop and try to live through until the next day when you hit it again. You have started at six in the morning, say, and may go on until noon or be through before that. When you stop you are as empty, and at the same time never empty but filling, as when you have made love to someone you love. Nothing can hurt you, nothing can happen, nothing means anything until the next day when you do it again. It is the wait until the next day that is hard to get through.

ERNEST HEMINGWAY

The Paris Review, spring 1958


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

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

DAN SIMMONS

Hyperion

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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


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


The first draft is the child's draft, where you let it all pour out and then let it romp all over the place, knowing that no one is going to see it and that you can shape it later.

ANNE LAMOTT

Bird by Bird

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Writing has freed me from the despair of living.

ANITA BROOKNER

The Paris Review, fall 1987

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