156 quotes found
“Every writer has only one story to tell, and he has to find a way of telling it until the meaning becomes clearer and clearer, until the story becomes at once more narrow and larger, more and more ...”
“I don’t think there’s a less elitist thing on earth to do than to try and reach out and connect with another human being . . . And that’s what the best writing does, that’s what art does. It looks ...”
“Art uses truth and beauty—both of which can be quite ugly, even as that ugliness is transcended—to foster change, growth, love, perception, friendship. Something that doesn’t do that can be great. ...”
“. . . any one episode, or even moment, in a person’s life is so complex, with so many layers of past and present, desire and indifference, drift and drive, consciousness and unconsciousness, that l...”
“The writer doesn’t want to disclose or instruct or advocate, he wants to transmute and disturb. He cherishes the mystery, he cares for it like a fugitive in his cabin, his cave. He doesn’t want to ...”
“Do you know why I believe in the novel? It’s a democratic shout. Anybody can write a great novel, one great novel, almost any amateur off the street. I believe this, George. Some nameless drudge, s...”
“When a writer doesn’t show his face, he becomes a local symptom of God’s famous reluctance to appear.”
“If a writer manages to be fascinating about his own novels, then there are only two possibilities: either he is merely voicing out loud what he wrote in his book, and he is a parrot; or he is expla...”
“Writing is a little bit like prostitution. First you do it for love. Then you do it for a few friends. Then you do it for money.”
“There is only one way to overcome the difficulty of writing, and that is to write. Thought only becomes effective and productive at the time of writing.”
“I assure you, I've come to one of those natural breaks in the book, where one can walk away and let things go on working in the subconscious. It's true, don't look so unbelieving. It means I can af...”
“Writin’ Is Fightin'!”
“Tell it fast before you get scared and silence yourself. You’ll never wish you’d held back a little more.”
“When I was a little boy, they called me a liar, but now that I'm a grown up, they call me a writer.”
“Women’s fiction” doesn’t sound like anything but a slur to my ears.”
“I consider whoever my words land on to be my target, that’s why I like flash fiction, it’s a lot like using a shotgun.”
