Quotes on Writing

I observe, I write, I try not to remember the life that I didn't want to loose but lost and have to remember, being here fills my heart with so much joy, even if the joy isn't mine, and at the end of the day I fill the suitcase with old news.

I write so slowly, I could write with my own blood and not hurt myself.

Write what you need to write, not what is currently popular or what you think will sell.

I might, by chance, write something just as shoddy; But then I wouldn't show it to everybody.

I make writing as much a part of my life as I do eating or listening to music.

To put it bluntly but fairly, anyone today who doubts that the variety of life on this planet was produced by a process of evolution is simply ignorant — inexcusably ignorant, in a world where three out of four people have learned to read and write.

Writing a check separates a commitment from a conversation.

I cannot imagine a sorrier pursuit than struggling for years to write a book that attempts to appeal to people who do not read in the first place.

No sooner had I stepp'd into these pleasures Than I began to think of rhymes and measures: The air that floated by me seem'd to say 'Write! thou wilt never have a better day.

I've wanted to be a writer since I was a boy, though it seemed an unlikely outcome since I showed no real talent. But I persevered and eventually found my own row to hoe. Ignorance of other writers' work keeps me from discouragement and I am less well-read than the average bus driver.

I used to forget that I was an Indian woman. I would even forget that I was a woman. I don't think of myself as bringing to the table a lot of 'women's issues.' I don't feel the need to write about maternity. I grew up thinking that the talented people in comedy were hard-joke writers.

We can summarize electricity, magnetism and gravity into equations one inch long, and that's the power of field theory. And so I said to myself: I will create a field theory of strings. And when I did it one day, it was incredible, realizing that on a sheet of paper I can write down an equation which summarized almost all physical knowledge.

I vowed to myself that when I grew up and became a theoretical physicist, in addition to doing research, I would write books that I would have liked to have read as a child. So whenever I write, I imagine myself, as a youth, reading my books, being thrilled by the incredible advances being made in physics and science.

Sometimes stories cry out to be told in such loud voices that you write them just to shut them up.

I went to the guest room and pretended to write. I hit the space bar again and again and again. My life story was spaces.

If I write something, I fear it will happen, and if I love too much, I fear I will lose that person; nevertheless, I cannot stop writing or loving.

I guess that’s the beauty of books. When they finish they don’t really finish.

Being incomprehensible offers unparalleled protection against having nothing to say...but writing with simplicity requires courage, for there is a danger that one will be overlooked, dismissed as simpleminded by those with a tenacious belief that the impassable prose is a hallmark of intelligence.

The writer's job is not to write a novel, hold it up and say, “Here I am,” but to write a novel, hold it up and say, “Here YOU are.

You know the typical crowd, Wow, it’s Friday night, what are you going to do? Just sit there? Well, yeah. Because there’s nothing out there. It’s stupidity. Stupid people mingling with stupid people. Let them stupidify themselves. I’ve never been bothered with the need to rush out into the night. That’s all. Sorry for all the millions, but I’ve never been lonely. I like myself. I’m the best form of entertainment I have.

Writers have to keep on writing if they want to mature, like caterpillars endlessly chewing on leaves.