WRITING QUOTES XXIX

quotations about writing

Writing sets off a spark in my heart, and I'm going to start a fire.

TIFFANY FERENTINI

"Millennial Writers on Writing", Huffington Post, February 16, 2016


What bothers most critics of my work is the goofiness. One reviewer said I need to make up my mind if want to be funny or serious. My response is that I will make up my mind when God does, because life is a commingling of the sacred and the profane, good and evil. To try and separate them is fallacy.

TOM ROBBINS

"In the Creative Process with Tom Robbins; Perfect Sentences, Imperfect Universe", New York Times, December 30, 1993


The most common human act that writing a novel resembles is lying. The working novelist lies daily, very complexly, and at great length.

WILLIAM GIBSON

Twitter post, May 31, 2009

Tags: William Gibson


One writes out of one thing only--one's own experience. Everything depends on how relentlessly one forces from this experience the last drop, sweet or bitter, it can possibly give.

JAMES BALDWIN

Notes of a Native Son

Tags: James Baldwin


In utter loneliness a writer tries to explain the inexplicable.

JOHN STEINBECK

New York Times, June 2, 1969


I've heard writers talk about "discovering a voice," but for me that wasn't a problem. There were so many voices that I didn't know where to start.

SAM SHEPARD

The Paris Review

Tags: Sam Shepard


I've always considered writing the most hateful kind of work. I suspect it's a bit like f***ing -- which is fun only for amateurs. Old whores don't do much giggling.

HUNTER S. THOMPSON

The Great Shark Hunt: Strange Tales from a Strange Time

Tags: Hunter S. Thompson


I don't like to write from a flat, cold position. You must like what you're doing very much or like the people -- either like them or hate them. You can't be indifferent.

SAUL BELLOW

Q & A at Howard Community College, February 1986


I can't write five words but that I change seven.

DOROTHY PARKER

The Paris Review, summer 1956


Fundamentally, all writing is about the same thing. It's about dying, about the brief flicker of time we have here, and the frustration it creates.

MORDECAI RICHLER

attributed, Mordecai & Me


Brevity is the sister of talent.

ANTON CHEKHOV

letter to A. P. Chekhov, April 11, 1889

Tags: Anton Chekhov


Writing is a tough thing and you only get better with practice. Just like free throws.

NICK WESTFALL

"Man writes directorial debut movie 'Finding Home'", myfox8, March 30, 2017


Writing can't be a way of life -- the important part of writing is living. You have to live in such a way that your writing emerges from it.

DORIS LESSING

Doris Lessing: Conversations

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True ease in writing comes from art, not chance,
As those move easiest who have learn'd to dance.

ALEXANDER POPE

An Essay on Criticism

Tags: Alexander Pope


To the question of writing at all we have sometimes been counselled to forget it, or rather the writing of books. What is required, we are told, is plays and films. Books are out of date! The book is dead, long live television! One question which is not even raised let alone considered is: Who will write the drama and film scripts when the generation that can read and write has been used up?

CHINUA ACHEBE

Hopes and Impediments: Selected Essays


The true alchemists do not change lead into gold; they change the world into words.

WILLIAM H. GASS

A Temple of Texts

Tags: William H. Gass


Publishing is a terrible invasion of my privacy. I like to write. I live to write. But I write just for myself and my own pleasure.

J. D. SALINGER

attributed, Salinger: A Biography


Pay attention only to the form; emotion will come spontaneously to inhabit it. A perfect dwelling always finds an inhabitant. The artist's business is to build the dwelling; as for the inhabitant, it is up to the reader to provide him.

ANDRE GIDE

Pretexts: Reflections on Literature and Morality

Tags: André Gide


No reason at all why one should go on writing just for the sake of it. I think it is very important to stop when you haven't got anything to say.

JULIAN BARNES

The Paris Review, winter 2000


In the writing process, the more the story cooks, the better. The brain works for you even when you are at rest. I find dreams particularly useful. I myself think a great deal before I go to sleep and the details sometimes unfold in the dream.

DORIS LESSING

The New York Times, April 22, 1984