15 quotes found
“Bad writing is more than a matter of shit syntax and faulty observation; bad writing usually arises from a stubborn refusal to tell stories about what people actually do to face the fact, let us sa...”
“When reading a book, one hopes it doesnt turn into a painful process. Predictable is bad enough. Laborious is acceptable if the labor produces fruit. But with painfully bad writing, all one can do ...”
“This too to remember. If a man writes clearly enough any one can see if he fakes. If he mystifies to avoid a straight statement, which is very different from breaking so-called rules of syntax or g...”
“I think the writer is initially set going by literature more than by life. When there are many writers all employing the same idiom, all looking out on more or less the same social scene, the indiv...”
“After all, it isn't really difficult to write books. Especially if you either write a rotten story in good English or a good story in rotten English, which is as far as most people seem to get nowa...”
“You can't be a good writer in the States anymore because to be a good one you have to have a country where you can be poor and still eat, and still make your living standard secondary to your writi...”
“Write at a pace that doesn't surpass your creative flow. Don't be hasty; don't be sloppy. Don't forfeit impressive writing for an impressive word count. Because eventually it will all have to be ed...”
“Heresy is usually quite sophisticated, actually has a meaning, and is to be taken very seriously. It is therefore to be carefully distinguished from turgid, pretentious, badly-written Bullsgeshicht...”
“If a story is no good, being based on Hamlet won't save it.”
“Because I want to have sex with him--and because that's sinful--I'm blushing and flushing furiously under his scrutinizing scrutiny.”
“A day of bad writing is always better than a day of no writing.”
“Somehow it seems to fill my head with ideasonly I dont exactly know what they are!”
“When reading a book, one hopes it doesn’t turn into a painful process. Predictable is bad enough. Laborious is acceptable if the labor produces fruit. But with painfully bad writing, all one can do...”
“…After all, it isn't really difficult to write books. Especially if you either write a rotten story in good English or a good story in rotten English, which is as far as most people seem to get now...”
“Somehow it seems to fill my head with ideas—only I don’t exactly know what they are!”
