1,322 quotes found
“When you sit down to write, write. Don't do anything else except go to the bathroom, and only do that if it absolutely cannot be put off.”
“My goal is to write every day. I say it is my ideal. I am careful not to pass judgment or create anxiety if I do not do it. No one lives up to his ideal.”
“I don't teach writing. I teach patience. Toughness. Stubbornness. The willingness to fail. I teach the life. The odd thing is most of the things that stop an inexperienced writer are so far from th...”
“Failure is usually boring. It is the credible but unrealized threat of failure that is interesting.”
“The pen is mightier than the sword!”
“The joy of writing.The power of preserving.Revenge of a mortal hand.”
“I am a writer perhaps because I am not a talker.”
“Just tell the truth, and they'll accuse you of writing black humor. ”
“if you think they didn't go crazy in tiny rooms just like you're doing now without women without food without hope then you're not ready. ”
“A book comes and says, 'Write me.”
“The only reason for being a professional writer is that you can't help it.”
“There is a long time in me between knowing and telling.”
“Anyone who is going to be a writer knows enough at fifteen to write several novels.”
“I have said that His Dark Materials is not fantasy but stark realism, and my reason for this is to emphasise what I think is an important aspect of the story, namely the fact that it is realistic, ...”
“Ivanov's fear was of a literary nature. That is, it was the fear that afflicts most citizens who, one fine (or dark) day, choose to make the practice of writing, and especially the practice of fict...”
“When you write your first novel you don't really know what you're doing. There may be writers out there who are brilliant, incisive and in control from their first 'Once upon a time'. I'm not one o...”
“Ideas come at any moment -- except when you demand them. Most ideas come while I'm physically active, at the gym, with friends, gardening, so I always carry pen and paper.My first draft is always w...”
“Writing comes more easily if you have something to say.”
“Writing is not a profession, occupation or job; it is not a way of life: it is a comprehensive response to life.”
“Do you think that Hemingway knew he was a writer at twenty years old? No, he did not. Or Fitzgerald, or Wolfe. This is a difficult concept to grasp. Hemingway didn't know he was Ernest Hemingway wh...”
