WRITING QUOTES XV

quotations about writing

I think it is essential to promote your work, since there are over 100,000 books published each year, and readers can fall in love with books they've never heard about.

DOUGLAS CARLTON ABRAMS

interview, The Writer's Life

Tags: Douglas Carlton Abrams


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


Here are the two states in which you may exist: person who writes, or person who does not. If you write: you are a writer. If you do not write: you are not. Aspiring is a meaningless null state that romanticizes Not Writing. It's as ludicrous as saying, "I aspire to pick up that piece of paper that fell on the floor." Either pick it up or don't. I don’t want to hear about how your diaper's full. Take it off or stop talking about it.

CHUCK WENDIG

The Kick-Ass Writer


You have to seduce the reader, manipulate their mind and heart, listen to the music of language. I sometimes think of prose as music, in terms of its rhythms and dynamics, the way you compress and expand the attention of a reader over a sentence, the way the tempo pushes you towards an image or sensation. We want an intense experience, so that we can forget ourselves when we enter the world of the book. When you are reading, the physical object of the book should disappear from your hands.

CARLOS RUIZ ZAFON

"The Shadow Maker", The Telegraph, November 27, 2005

Tags: Carlos Ruiz Zafon


Some people talk to themselves, and some people write, and somehow society has decided that one gets committed and one gets a paycheck.

BOB LONSBERRY

official website

Tags: Bob Lonsberry


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

ALBERT CAMUS

attributed, 2012: Waking of the Prophets

Tags: Albert Camus


Sometimes I think that my best writing comes from exposing my fears and vulnerabilities and hoping that nobody notices it's about me.

VICTORIA LAURIE

Twitter post, October 13, 2014

Tags: Victoria Laurie


I like that every page in every book can have a gem on it. It's probably what I love most about writing--that words can be used in a way that's like a child playing in a sandpit, rearranging things, swapping them around. They're the best moments in a day of writing -- when an image appears that you didn't know would be there when you started work in the morning.

MARKUS ZUSAK

The Book Thief


Well, I don't ever leave out details, in that I don't come up with information or description which I don't then use. I only ever come up with what seems to me absolutely essential to make the story work. I'm not usually an overwriter. As I revise, it's usually a matter of adding in as much vivid details as seem necessary to make the story come clear without slowing down the momentum of the story.

KELLY LINK

interview, Apex Magazine, July 2, 2013

Tags: Kelly Link


The writer must be universal in sympathy and an outcast by nature: only then can he see clearly.

JULIAN BARNES

Flaubert's Parrot

Tags: Julian Barnes


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


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


I, even now, persist in believing that these black marks on white paper bear the greatest significance, that if I keep writing I might be able to catch the rainbow of consciousness in a jar.

JEFFREY EUGENIDES

Middlesex

Tags: Jeffrey Eugenides


Lucky the one who writes in a book of spiral-bound mornings
a future in ink, who writes hand unshaking

JANE HIRSHFIELD

"Sweater"

Tags: Jane Hirshfield


Don't write too much. Concentrate your sweat on one story, rather than dissipate it over a dozen.

JACK LONDON

"Getting Into Print", Editor magazine, 1903


I like to write. Sometimes I'm afraid that I like it too much because when I get into work I don't want to leave it. As a result I'll go for days and days without leaving the house or wherever I happen to be. I'll go out long enough to get papers and pick up some food and that's it. It's strange, but instead of hating writing I love it too much.

HARPER LEE

interview with Roy Newquist, Counterpoints, 1964

Tags: Harper Lee


The only characters I've made to resemble real people have been grotesques.

GLEN COOK

interview, SF Site, September 2005

Tags: Glen Cook


I think a writer's job is to provoke questions. I like to think that if someone's read a book of mine, they've had--I don't know what--the literary equivalent of a shower. Something that would start them thinking in a slightly different way perhaps. That's what I think writers are for. This is what our function is.

DORIS LESSING

The Paris Review, spring 1988


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