Quotes on Writing

Of course I know that the twins are only words on a page, and I'm certainly not the sort of writer who talks to his characters or harbours any illusions about the creative process. But at the same time, I think it's juvenile and arrogant when literary writers compulsively remind their readers that the characters aren't real. People know that already. The challenge is to make an intelligent reader suspend disbelief, to seduce them into the reality of a narrative.

To write requires an ego, a belief that what you say matters. Writing also requires an aching curiosity leading you to discover, uncover, what is gnawing at your bones.

It doubles your perception, to write from the point of view of someone you're not.

After a while, the characters I'm writing begin to feel real to me. That's when I know I'm heading in the right direction

We will, of course, without hesitation use art to parody, ridicule, debunk, or criticize ideologies.

I want you to be afraid to turn the page (and to do that) you need to show right from the beginning that you're playing for keeps.

I'm not everybody's cup of tea. But sometimes criticism can be hurtful. Be respectful I'm a good piano player, I can sing well, I write good songs. If you don't like it, fair enough. But give me a break.

I have an ambition to write a great book, but that's really a competition with myself. I've noticed that a lot of young writers, people in all media, want to be famous but they don't really want to do anything. I can't think of anything less worth striving for than fame.

America, how can I write a holy litany in your silly mood?

I want to write poems that are natural, luminous, deep, spare. I dream of an art so transparent that you can look through and see the world.

If I had to give young writers advice, I would say don't listen to writers talking about writing or themselves.

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

Introverts, in contrast, may have strong social skills and enjoy parties and business meetings, but after a while wish they were home in their pajamas. They prefer to devote their social energies to close friends, colleagues, and family. They listen more than they talk, think before they speak, and often feel as if they express themselves better in writing than in conversation. They tend to dislike conflict. Many have a horror of small talk, but enjoy deep discussions.

Prose is like hair; it shines with combing.

I learned to write fiction the way I learned to read fiction - by skipping the parts that bored me.

A play is made by sensing how the forces in life simulate ignorance-you set free the concealed irony, the deadly joke.

A writer should get as much education as possible, but just going to school is not enough; if it were, all owners of doctorates would be inspired writers.

I will never understand people who think that the way to show their righteous opposition to sexual freedom is to write letters full of filthy words.

There are three difficulties in authorship;-to write any thing worth the publishing-to find honest men to publish it -and to get sensible men to read it. Literature has now become a game; in which the Booksellers are the Kings; The Critics the Knaves; the Public, the Pack; and the poor Author, the mere table, or the Thing played upon.

If I were a first rate writer, I wouldn't mind a bit. What does depress me is this: it is so desperately hard and so obsessive and so lonely to write that, in return for all this work, one would like a little self satisfaction. And that is never going to come, for the simple reason that I do not deserve it. I cannot be a good enough writer. You see? I call it grim. But the future looks awfully clear to me.

The weapons an author has at her disposal are flawed. There are words that feel shapeless and overused. Love, for example. I could write the word love a thousand times and it would mean a thousand different things to different readers.