quotations about writing
There are three rules for writing the novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM
attributed, Literary Agents: How to Get & Work with the Right One for You
Brevity is the sister of talent.
ANTON CHEKHOV
letter to A. P. Chekhov, April 11, 1889
There is no way of writing well and also of writing easily.
ANTHONY TROLLOPE
Barchester Towers
Madness is terrific I can assure you, and not to be sniffed at; and in its lava I still find most of the things I write about. It shoots out of one everything shaped, final, not in mere driblets, as sanity does.
VIRGINIA WOOLF
Letters
In the end, the writer is not even allowed to live in his writing.
THEODOR W. ADORNO
Minima Moralia
Publishing is a terrible invasion of my privacy. I like to write. I live to write. But I write just for myself and my own pleasure.
J. D. SALINGER
attributed, Salinger: A Biography
The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shock-proof, shit detector. This is the writer's radar and all great writers have had it.
ERNEST HEMINGWAY
Paris Review, spring 1958
What I like to do is write the story, see where it takes me -- and then check out the details I don't know. When I first started writing, there were a lot of things about the world that I understood but didn't have the vocabulary for -- and even more things that I just had no idea about. For instance, do you know all the parts of a door frame? Or what flowers bloom in the spring in alpine climates? There's a surprising amount of homework involved in writing a book.
PATRICIA BRIGGS
interview, Bitten by Books, March 30, 2010
First forget inspiration. Habit is more dependable. Habit will sustain you whether you're inspired or not. Habit will help you finish and polish your stories. Inspiration won't. Habit is persistence in practice.
OCTAVIA E. BUTLER
"Furor Scribendi", Bloodchild and Other Stories
Whenever they tell me children want this sort of book and children need this sort of writing, I am going to smile politely and shut my earlids. I am a writer, not a caterer. There are plenty of caterers. But what children most want and need is what we and they don't know they want and don't think they need, and only writers can offer it to them.
URSULA K. LE GUIN
"A Message About Messages", CBC Magazine
Writers kid themselves -- about themselves and other people. Take the talk about writing methods. Writing is just work -- there's no secret. If you dictate or use a pen or type or write with your toes -- it's still just work.
SINCLAIR LEWIS
attributed, Just Open a Vein: A Book of Quotes for Writers
Writing is an act of blind faith that out there, somewhere, someone will read and enjoy, understand.
JAMES V. SCHALL
"The Creative Catholic: Fr. James V. Schall S.J. on the art and vocation of writing", Catholic World Report, March 27, 2017
There is, as yet, no Act of Parliament compelling a bona fide traveler to read. If you wish him to read, you must make reading pleasant. You must give him short views, and clear sentences.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Literary Studies
If I cannot be myself in what I write, then the whole is nothing but lies and humbug.
HENRIK IBSEN
letter to Björnstjerne Björnson, September 12, 1865
Genre categories are irrelevant. I dislike them, but I do not have the casting vote. Writing is writing and stories are stories. Perhaps the only true genres are fiction and non-fiction. And even there, who can be sure?
TANITH LEE
Tabula Rasa, October 1994
What you're trying to do when you write is to crowd the reader out of his own space and occupy it with yours, in a good cause. You're trying to take over his sensibility and deliver an experience that moves from mere information.
ROBERT STONE
The Paris Review, winter 1985
I demand that my books be judged with utmost severity, by knowledgeable people who know the rules of grammar and of logic, and who will seek beneath the footsteps of my commas the lice of my thought in the head of my style.
LOUIS ARAGON
Treatise on Style
It was then that I saw the business of writing for what it truly was and is to me. It is your penance for not being lucky. It is an attempt to reach others and to make them love you. It is your instinctive protest, when you find you have no voice at the world's tribunals, and that no one will speak for you. I would give my entire output of words, past, present and to come, in exchange for easier access to the world, for permission to state "I hurt" or "I hate" or "I want". Or indeed, "Look at me". And I do not go back on this. For once a thing is known it can never be unknown. It can only be forgotten. And writing is the enemy of forgetfulness, or thoughtlessness. For the writer there is no oblivion. Only endless memory.
ANITA BROOKNER
Look at Me
Remember that in today's market, distribution and promotion are as important as craft. But don't forget what made you want to write fiction. If it was for the money, you're in the wrong business!
ELIZABETH ZELVIN
interview, Book Browsing, July 26, 2012
The same common-sense which makes an author write good things, makes him dread they are not good enough to deserve reading.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of Works of the Mind", Les Caractères