1,322 quotes found
“The job of the writer isn't to answer questions. The job of the writer is to ask the questions for which there are no answers.”
“What is written is merely the dregs of experience.”
“True originality consists not in a new manner, but in a new vision.”
“He felt as he always did when he finished a book queerly empty, let down, aware that for each little success he had paid a toll of absurdity.”
“Only half the story is true. The rest is necessary.”
“If writing didn't require thinking then we'd all be doing it.”
“When my horse is running good, I don't stop to give him sugar.”
“Writing doesnt get easier with experience. The more you know, the harder it is to write.”
“Constant work, constant writing and constant revision. The real writer learns nothing from life. He is more like an oyster or a sponge. What he takes in he takes in normally the way any person take...”
“So we went to bed, assaulted by sleep that fumed at us from medicine glasses, or was wielded from small sweet-coated tablets -- dainty bricks of dream wrapped in the silk stockings of oblivion.”
“Believe in yourself and in your own voice, because there will be times in this business when you will be the only one who does. Take heart from the knowledge that an author with a strong voice will...”
“The writer's life: Hard days, lots of work, no money, too much silence. Nobody's fault. You chose it. ”
“Our admiration of fine writing will always be in proportion to its real difficulty and its apparent ease.”
“He read me extracts from a medical journal describing the progress of a staphylococcus aureus infection. And then he pleasured me with a potato.”
“And please God, grant me the wisdom to remember that I am writing for children, not golden stickers.”
“Writing is like breathing, it's possible to learn to do it well, but the point is to do it no matter what.”
“Writing is a solitary business. It takes over your life. In some sense, a writer has no life of his own. Even when hes there, hes not really there.”
“I have eavesdropped with impunity on the lives of people who do not exist. I have peeped shamelessly into hearts and bathroom closets. I have leaned over shoulders to follow the movements of quills...”
“What I adore is supreme professionalism. Im bored by writers who can write only when its raining.”
“You write for the people in high school who ignored you. We all do.”
