quotations about writing
I have feelings, but my pen cannot and will not write feelings; nay, my heart has no mind that can coin them into words.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Reminiscences
When I taught, a lot of my students weren't big readers, so they would write something and I realized that they thought it belonged in a book. Like, they didn't know what the inside of a book looked like, you know what I mean?
DAVID SEDARIS
Oasis Magazine, June 2008
In my view, if you write every day you're a certified graphomaniac, you're OCD, you're addicted to the physical act and not the real, spiritual one.
ROSEMARY JENKINSON
"Writing is not about youth but about spark", Irish Times, March 27, 2017
There is probably no hell for authors in the next world--they suffer so much from critics and publishers in this.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
Writers don't give prescriptions. They give headaches!
CHINUA ACHEBE
Anthills of the Savannah
To string incongruities and absurdities together in a wandering and sometimes purposeless way, and seem innocently unaware that they are absurdities, is the basis of the American art, if my position is correct.
MARK TWAIN
"How to Tell a Story"
I like what I do. Some writers have said in print that they hated writing and it was just a chore and a burden. I certainly don't feel that way about it. Sometimes it's difficult. You know, you always have this image of the perfect thing which you can never achieve, but which you never stop trying to achieve. But I think ... that's your signpost and your guide. You'll never get there, but without it you won't get anywhere.
CORMAC MCCARTHY
interview with Oprah Winfrey, June 1, 2008
Just as the light and weightless vegetation of saltpeter floats over the old walls of houses as soon as the owner gets careless, so the literary vocation springs up in you.
FEDERICO GARCIA LORCA
letter to Jose Bello, summer 1925
I have not felt in a humor to entertain you if I had taken up my pen. Perhaps some unbecoming invective might have fallen from it.
ABIGAIL ADAMS
letter to John Adams, May 7, 1776
I know exactly what I want to write. I do not write until I do. Usually I write it all down only once. And that goes relatively quickly, since it really depends only on how fast I type.
HANNAH ARENDT
interview, ZDF TV, Zur Person, October 28, 1964
The privilege of being a writer is that you have this opportunity to slow down and to consider things.
CHRIS ABANI
interview, UTNE Reader, June 2010
Write books only if you are going to say in them the things you would never dare confide to anyone.
EMIL CIORAN
The Trouble with Being Born
Write only of what is important and eternal.
ANTON CHEKHOV
The Seagull
The text you write must prove to me that it desires me.
ROLAND BARTHES
The Pleasures of the Text
The first paragraph. The last paragraph. That's where the story is going and how it's going to end. Or else you'll go off in a hundred different directions.
HUNTER S. THOMPSON
The Paris Review, fall 2000
I compelled myself all through to write an exercise in verse, in a different form, every day of the year. I turned out my page every day, of some sort--I mean I didn't give a damn about the meaning, I just wanted to master the form--all the way from free verse, Walt Whitman, to the most elaborate of villanelles and ballad forms. Very good training. I've always told everybody who has ever come to me that I thought that was the first thing to do.
CONRAD AIKEN
interview, The Paris Review, winter-spring 1968
My job is not to try to give readers what they want but to try to make readers want what I give.
CHINA MIÉVILLE
The Guardian, September 20, 2012
The factors controlling a writer's popularity are as mysterious and ultimately as unknowable as the number of stars in the sky.
SAMUEL R. DELANY
interview, SF Site, April 2001
I've come to believe that a huge part of getting better at writing is forcing yourself to see the things that have been in the corner of your eye all along. That means writing stories that include characters from other cultures and backgrounds--but also, being more open to other viewpoints in general. It also means interrogating all of your other lazy ideas and drilling into all of the "of courses" that you let yourself get away with.
CHARLIE JANE ANDERS
"The Single Most Important Thing You Can Do To Make Your Writing More Awesome", Gizmodo, February 25, 2016
My gratitude for good writing is unbounded; I'm grateful for it the way I'm grateful for the ocean.
ANNE LAMOTT
Bird by Bird