WRITING QUOTES XI

quotations about writing

The factors controlling a writer's popularity are as mysterious and ultimately as unknowable as the number of stars in the sky.

SAMUEL R. DELANY

interview, SF Site, April 2001

Tags: Samuel R. Delany


I have no taste for either poverty or honest labor, so writing is the only recourse left for me.

HUNTER S. THOMPSON

The Proud Highway

Tags: Hunter S. Thompson


I can't avoid writing. It's a sort of nervous tic I have developed since I gave up needlepoint.

CLARE BOOTHE LUCE

"Fast and Luce", Vanity Fair, March 1988

Tags: Clare Boothe Luce


A lot of novelists start late--Conrad, Pirandello, even Mark Twain. When you're young, chess is all right, and music and poetry. But novel-writing is something else. It has to be learned, but it can't be taught. This bunkum and stinkum of college creative writing courses! The academics don't know that the only thing you can do for someone who wants to write is to buy him a typewriter.

JAMES M. CAIN

The Paris Review, spring-summer 1978

Tags: James M. Cain


The easier a thing is to write then the more the writer gets paid for writing it. (And vice versa: ask the poets at the bus stop.)

MARTIN AMIS

The Information


Writing is -- at least for me -- movement forward, the conquest of a body that I do not know at all, away from something to something that I do not yet know; I never know what will happen -- and here 'happen' is not intended as plot resolution, in the sense of classical dramaturgy, but in the sense of a complicated and complex experiment that with given imaginary, spiritual, intellectual and sensual materials in interaction strives -- on paper to boot! -- towards incarnation.

HEINRICH BÖLL

Nobel Lecture, May 2, 1973


I'm all in favor of keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of fools. Let's start with typewriters.

DAVID GERROLD

A Matter For Men

Tags: David Gerrold


The writer operates at a peculiar crossroads where time and place and eternity somehow meet. His problem is to find that location.

FLANNERY O'CONNOR

Mystery and Manners


The demand that I make of my reader is that he should devote his whole life to reading my works.

JAMES JOYCE

interview with Max Eastman, Harper's Magazine, 1929?

Tags: James Joyce


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


My father was a writer, so I grew up writing and reading and I was really encouraged by him. I had some sort of gift and when it came time to try to find a publisher I had a little bit of an "in" because I had his agent I could turn to, to at least read my initial offerings when I was about 20. But the only problem was that they were just awful, they were just terrible stories and my agent, who ended up being my agent, was very, very sweet about it, but it took about four years until I actually had something worth trying to sell.

ANNE LAMOTT

interview, Big Think, April 6, 2010


Writers don't give prescriptions. They give headaches!

CHINUA ACHEBE

Anthills of the Savannah

Tags: Chinua Achebe


The triumph of the written word is often attained when the writer achieves union and trust with the reader, who then becomes ready to be drawn deep into unfamiliar territory, walking in borrowed literary shoes so to speak, toward a deeper understanding of self or society, or of foreign peoples, cultures, and situations.

CHINUA ACHEBE

There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra


I've come to believe that a huge part of getting better at writing is forcing yourself to see the things that have been in the corner of your eye all along. That means writing stories that include characters from other cultures and backgrounds--but also, being more open to other viewpoints in general. It also means interrogating all of your other lazy ideas and drilling into all of the "of courses" that you let yourself get away with.

CHARLIE JANE ANDERS

"The Single Most Important Thing You Can Do To Make Your Writing More Awesome", Gizmodo, February 25, 2016


Writing is about growth, challenge and change. Without those things, there's no joy in it.

VERONICA ROTH

"Best-Selling Author Veronica Roth Tells What Writing Books Is Really Like", Entrepreneur, March 30, 2017


I have feelings, but my pen cannot and will not write feelings; nay, my heart has no mind that can coin them into words.

LYMAN ABBOTT

Reminiscences

Tags: Lyman Abbott


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


To say that a writer's hold on reality is tenuous is an understatement -- it's like saying the Titanic had a rough crossing. Writers build their own realities, move into them, and occasionally send letters home.

DAVID GERROLD

The Martian Child

Tags: David Gerrold


One writes because one has been touched by the yearning for and the despair of ever touching the Other.

CHARLES SIMIC

The Unemployed Fortune-Teller

Tags: Charles Simic


Maybe everyone does have a novel in them, perhaps even a great one. I don't believe it, but for the purposes of this argument, let's say it's so. Only a few of us are going to be willing to break our own hearts by trading in the living beauty of imagination for the stark disappointment of words. This is why we type a line or two and then hit the delete button or crumple up the page. Certainly that was not what I meant to say! That does not represent what I see. Maybe I should try again another time. Maybe the muse has stepped out back for a smoke. Maybe I have writer's block. Maybe I'm an idiot and was never meant to write at all.

ANN PATCHETT

The Getaway Car