The job of the writer is to take a close and uncomfortable look at the world they inhabit, the world we all inhabit, and the job of the novel is to make the corpse stink.
Walter MosleyRead
If you want to be a writer, you have to write every day... You don't go to a well once but daily. You don't skip a child's breakfast or forget to wake up in the morning.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Writing regularly is essential for becoming a successful writer.
In this quote, Walter Mosley emphasizes the importance of daily practice for aspiring writers. Just as regular habits like eating breakfast and waking up each day are essential for life, writing every day is crucial for developing one's skills and finding one's voice as a writer. Consistency and commitment to writing can lead to growth and mastery in the craft.
Themes
WritingPracticeHabitsDisciplineCreativity
In practice
Example use cases
In a writing workshop to motivate participants to create daily habits.
More from Walter Mosley
All quotes →At one time if you were a black writer you had to be one of the best writers in the world to be published. You had to be great. Now you can be good. Mediocre. And that's good.
Walter MosleyRead
My father cared about the world he lived in, and so he admitted his confusion about his place in America because he didn't want me to make the same mistake in my life.
Walter MosleyRead
Many & most moments go by with us hardly aware of their passage. But love & hate & fear cause time to snag you, to drag you down like a spider's web holding fast to a doomed fly's wings. And when you're caught like that you're aware of every moment & movement & nuance.
Walter MosleyRead
We are not trapped or locked up in these bones. No, no. We are free to change. And love changes us. And if we can love one another, we can break open the sky.
Walter MosleyRead
All writing is that structure of revelation. There's something you want to find out. If you know everything up front in the beginning, you really don't need to read further if there's nothing else to find out.
Walter MosleyRead
Similar quotes
Some read to think, these are rare; some to write, these are common; and some read to talk, and these form the great majority.
Charles Caleb ColtonRead
It's not how much money we make that ultimately makes us happy between nine and five. It's whether or not our work fulfills us. Being a teacher is meaningful.
Malcolm GladwellRead
Kids who are poor often have families that have not really been kept informed about... how important it is to read to your child, to reduce stresses in their life, to use positive incentives and words.
Geoffrey CanadaRead
I despise the phony, fancy-pants rhetoric of professors aping jargon-filled European locutions - which have blighted academic film criticism for over 30 years.
Camille PagliaRead
Youths are passed through schools that don’t teach, then forced to search for jobs that don’t exist and finally left stranded in the street to stare at the glamorous lives advertised around them.
Huey NewtonRead
Books mean all possibilities. They mean moving out of yourself, losing yourself, dying of thirst and living to your full. They mean everything.
Ali SmithRead