1,322 quotes found
“I belong to this notebook and this pencil.”
“Sometimes stories cry out to be told in such loud voices that you write them just to shut them up.”
“Loafing is the most productive part of a writer's life. ”
“I want people who write to crash or dive below the surface, where life is so cold and confusing and hard to see.Your anger and damage and grief are the way to the truth.”
“My greatest personal mistake is ever to allow a word or moment that doesnt count, i.e., that I do not refer to my own basic principles. Every word, every action, every moment counts. (This is the p...”
“Anyone who conceives of writing as an agreeable stroll towards a middle-class life-style will never write anything but crap.”
“When you write, you can hide behind your words. When you talk, you are up front, like the clown in the midway booth; and passersby can bean you with a ball.”
“She wrote poetry constantly; that was her "work". She was a slow bleeder and she slaved over it for long, exhausting hours, and many a middle of a night I could hear her creaking around the dead ho...”
“It's my attempt to remain invisible, not distract the reader from the story with obvious writing.”
“The artist deals with what cannot be said in words. The novelist says in words what cannot be said in words.”
“So long as you write it away regularly nothing can really hurt you.”
“If you write to impress it will always be bad, but if you write to express it will be good”
“Everyone thinks writers must know more about the inside of the human head, but that's wrong. They know less, that's why they write. Trying to find out what everyone else takes for granted.”
“I believe the way to write a good play is to convince yourself it is easy to do--then go ahead and do it with ease. Don't maul, don't suffer, don't groan till the first draft is finished. A play is...”
“It's doubtful that anyone with an internet connection at his workplace is writing good fiction.”
“I wisely started with a map.”
“There is only one trait that marks the writer. He is always watching. It's a kind of trick of the mind and he is born with it. ”
“The rest of it - and perhaps the best of it - is a permission slip: you can, you should, and if you're brave enough to start, you will.”
“In fact, one could argue that the skill of the fiction writer boils down to the ability to exploit intensity.”
“Literary characters, like my grandmother's apparitions, are fragile beings, easily frightened; they must be treated with care so they will feel comfortable in my pages”
