Quotes on Famous Writers

Close the door. Write with no one looking over your shoulder. Don't try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say. It's the one and only thing you have to offer.

Get it down. Take chances. It may be bad, but that's the only way you can do anything really good.

As to the adjective: when in doubt, strike it out.

Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere.

Most of the basic material a writer works with is acquired before the age of fifteen.

You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.

If you don't have the time to read, you don't have the time or the tools to write.

A famous writer who wants to continue writing has to be constantly defending himself against fame.

Everybody walks past a thousand story ideas every day. The good writers are the ones who see five or six of them. Most people don't see any.

Easy reading is damn hard writing.

There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.

That famous writer’s block is a myth as far as I’m concerned. I think bad writers must have a great difficulty writing. They don’t want to do it. They have become writers out of reasons of ambition. It must be a great strain to them to make marks on a page when they really have nothing much to say, and don’t enjoy doing it. I’m not so sure what I have to say but I certainly enjoy making sentences.

Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.

My own experience is that once a story has been written, one has to cross out the beginning and the end. It is there that we authors do most of our lying.

It's none of their business that you have to learn how to write. Let them think you were born that way.