Quotes on Writing

There are two kinds of writers; the great ones who can give you truths, and the lessor ones, who can only give you themselves.

Let the reader find that he cannot afford to omit any line of your writing because you you have omitted every word that he can spare.

Good writing is essentially rewriting.

I think the only person a writer has an obligation to is himself. If what I write doesn't fulfill something in me, if I don't honestly feel it's the best I can do, then I'm miserable.

If you follow your bliss you will find a path laid out before you that has been waiting for you all along and you will begin to live the life you ought to be living.

Language is more fashion than science, and matters of usage, spelling and pronunciation tend to wander around like hemlines.

You will have to write and put away or burn a lot of material before you are comfortable in this medium. You might as well start now and get the work done. For I believe that eventually quantity will make for quality.

Writing is very improvisational. It's like trying to fix a broken sewing machine with safety pins and rubber bands. A lot of tinkering.

Because I can't seem to escape it. It's a way for me to address and counter my questions about what it means to be human, or, in my case a Dominican human who grew up in New Jersey.

One of the problems we have as writers is we don't take ourselves seriously while writing; being serious is setting aside a time and saying if it comes, good; if it doesn't come, good, I'll just sit here.

I started writing novels while an undergraduate student, in an attempt to make sense of the city of Edinburgh, using a detective as my protagonist. Each book hopefully adds another piece to the jigsaw that is modern Scotland, asking questions about the nation's politics, economy, psyche and history ... and perhaps pointing towards its possible future.

Writing eases my suffering . . . writing is my way of reaffirming my own existence.

I loved and still love watching words flower into sentences and sentences blossom into stories.

My characters talk to one another, and when it reaches a certain pitch of excitement I jump out of bed and run and trap them before they are gone.

The more you read, the more you will write. The better the stuff you read, the better the stuff you will write.

Only bad writers think that their work is really good.

Write whatever way you like. Fiction is made of words on a page; reality is made of something else. It doesn't matter how "real" your story is, or how "made up": what matters is its necessity.

Writing should be meaningful for children, Y an intrinsic need should be aroused in them, and Y writing should be incorporated into a task that is necessary and relevant.

A new book is like a friend that I have yet to meet

How do you write? You write, man, you write, that's how, and you do it the way the old English walnut tree puts forth leaf and fruit every year by the thousands. . . . If you practice an art faithfully, it will make you wise, and most writers can use a little wising up.

Never use an adverb to modify the verb 'said' . . . he admonished gravely. To use an adverb this way (or almost any way) is a mortal sin. The writer is now exposing himself in earnest, using a word that distracts and can interrupt the rhythm of the exchange.