quotations about writing
The only characters I've made to resemble real people have been grotesques.
GLEN COOK
interview, SF Site, September 2005
Good writers define reality; bad ones merely restate it.
EDWARD ALBEE
Saturday Review, May 4, 1966
There are only two kinds of books which you can write and be pretty sure you're going to make a living -- cook books and detective stories.
REX STOUT
Royal Decree: Conversations with Rex Stout
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
This is a slow business to have success in. There are exceptions, but for the most part it's kind of like the last writer standing.... I've got gray. I've got plenty of gray. I'm creating a career slowly, like a coral reef.
ROBERT REED
Lincoln Journal Star, January 11, 2004
In my view, if you write every day you're a certified graphomaniac, you're OCD, you're addicted to the physical act and not the real, spiritual one.
ROSEMARY JENKINSON
"Writing is not about youth but about spark", Irish Times, March 27, 2017
A plain narrative of any remarkable fact, emphatically related, has a more striking effect without the author's comment.
WILLIAM SHENSTONE
Essays on Men and Manners
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
Almost every author I have met who has started a novel that is not yet finished is making the same mistake: They are all bogged down at around chapter 4 or 5. Why? Because they are editing everything as they go. Dotting every T, crossing every 'i' and writing and re-writing every sentence until it is perfect. There are a few theories as to why you just can't do this but let me just be clear up front: YOU CAN'T DO THIS!
DAVID CHISLETT
"Editing Is Not Writing", Books LIVE, February 12, 2016
Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you've been to college.
KURT VONNEGUT
A Man Without a Country
Writers are made--forged, really, in a kiln of their own madness and insecurities.
CHUCK WENDIG
250 Things You Should Know About Writing
I wrote without much effort; for I was rich, and the rich are always respectable, whatever be their style of writing.
JANE AUSTEN
letter to Cassandra Austen, June 20, 1808
Dear Aspiring Author; Write with heart. Put that open, honest, bare soul on paper.
VICTORIA LAURIE
Twitter post, December 3, 2014
A writer should be able to express himself easily, naturally, copiously in a form that frees his mind, his energies. Why should he hobble himself with formalities?
SAUL BELLOW
The Paris Review, winter 1966
You know nobody's ever going to see the stuff, but you have to write through it. You're just trying to satisfy some grim, barren mandate. There's probably a German word for that.
JOHN JEREMIAH SULLIVAN
The Paris Review, winter 2012
Everybody writes a book too many.
MORDECAI RICHLER
"Sayings of the Week", The Observor, January 9, 1985
Everywhere I go I'm asked if I think the university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them. There's many a best-seller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.
FLANNERY O'CONNOR
attributed, The Book of Poisonous Quotes
I consider a story merely as a frame on which to stretch my materials.
WASHINGTON IRVING
introduction, Tales of a Traveler
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
We writers don't really think about whether what we write is good or not. It's too much to worry about. We just put the words down, trying to get them right, operating by some inner sense of pitch and proportion, and from time to time, we stick the stuff in an envelope and ship it to an editor.
GARRISON KEILLOR
"Who Has Time to Be a Writer?", Salon, August 11, 1998