Quotes on Writing

Poetry is the liquid voice that can wear through stone.

Writing is seduction. Good talk is part of seduction. If not so, why do so many couples who start the evening at dinner wind up in bed?

What I write is different from what I say, what I say is different from what I think, what I think is different from what I ought to think and so it goes further into the deepest darkness.

What has praise and fame to do with poetry? Was not writing poetry a secret transaction, a voice answering a voice? So that all this chatter and praise, and blame and meeting people who admired one and meeting people who did not admire one was as ill suited as could be to the thing itself- a voice answering a voice.

The best style is the style you don't notice.

I always try to write on the principle of the iceberg. There is seven-eighths of it underwater for every part that shows.

Success is a finished book, a stack of pages each of which is filled with words. If you reach that point, you have won a victory over yourself no less impressive than sailing single-handed around the world.

A book comes and says, 'Write me.

The most durable thing in writing is style, and style is the single most valuable investment a writer can make with his time.

I'll write this all down for you," I said. "I'll put it in a story." I don't know if that's what he wanted to ask me, but it's something everybody wants--for someone to see the hurt done to them and set it down like it matters.

To write well, express yourself like the common people, but think like a wise man.

You cannot write well or much (and I venture the opinion that you cannot write well unless you write much) unless you form a habit.

The main question to a novel is -- did it amuse? were you surprised at dinner coming so soon? did you mistake eleven for ten? were you too late to dress? and did you sit up beyond the usual hour? If a novel produces these effects, it is good; if it does not -- story, language, love, scandal itself cannot save it. It is only meant to please; and it must do that or it does nothing.

When I cannot see words curling like rings of smoke round me I am in darkness—I am nothing.

I shall live badly if I do not write, and I shall write badly if I do not live.

The writer is either a practicing recluse or a delinquent, guilt-ridden one--or both. Usually both.

Ah men, why do you want all this attention? I can write poems for myself, make love to a doorknob if absolutely necessary. What do you have to offer me I can't find otherwise except humiliation? Which I no longer need.

Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on

Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.

My dear Tom, Delighted to get your letter. Do write again. This life is terrible and I don't understand how it can be endured.

You can't blame a writer for what the characters say.