WRITING QUOTES IV
quotations about writing
Each book starts from ashes.
PHILIP ROTH
interview with Cynthia Haven, "The Book Haven"
If I've already figured out how the book ends, why bother to finish writing it? My writing isn't terribly efficient, because I often have to backtrack a bit when I change my mind, but I like the sense of discovery that comes from not knowing what happens next.
PATRICIA BRIGGS
interview, Bitten by Books, March 30, 2010
For a sentence is not complete unless each word, once its syllables have been pronounced, gives way to make room for the next.
ST. AUGUSTINE
Confessions
When asked for advice by beginners. Know your ending, I say, or the river of your story may finally sink into the desert sands and never reach the sea.
ISAAC ASIMOV
I, Asimov: A Memoir
It is the glory and the merit of some men to write well, and of others not to write at all.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of Works of the Mind", Les Caractères
No writing has any real value which is not the expression of genuine thought and feeling.
ELEANOR ROOSEVELT
My Day
I don't give a damn what other people think. It's entirely their own business. I'm not writing for other people.
HAROLD PINTER
interview, December 1971
In his prime the Hollywood screenwriter was one of the tragic figures of our age, evoking the special anguish that arises from feeling sorry for oneself while making large amounts of money.
J. G. BALLARD
A User's Guide to the Millennium
It's easy, after all, not to be a writer. Most people aren't writers, and very little harm comes to them.
JULIAN BARNES
Flaubert's Parrot
Writing is a profession you can practice while upside down and experiencing total blackout in a cave. You just use the mental recorder instead of pen and paper ... or portable ... and hope you find a use for the experience.
C. J. CHERRYH
interview, SFF World, January 1, 2000
A writer is a reader moved to emulation.
SAUL BELLOW
attributed, The Hidden Writer
Anything that happens to you has some bearing upon what you write.
JOHN DOS PASSOS
The Paris Review, spring 1969
The interesting thing is that I rarely look at the outline once I've done it. And when I read the outline once I've written the novel, I realize I've written a totally different book.
JONATHAN KELLERMAN
"Novelist explains how psychology training honed his writing", USC News, February 25, 2016
Every writer in the country can write a beautiful sentence, or a hundred. What I am interested in is the ugly sentence that is also somehow beautiful.
DONALD BARTHELME
"On Paraguay"
You grow a whole lot more as a writer by getting old stories out of the house and letting new ones come in and live with you until they grow up and are ready to go. Don't let the old ones stay there and grow fat and cranky and eat all the food out of the refrigerator. You have dozens of generations of stories inside you, but the only way to make room for the new ones is to write the old ones and mail them off.
ORSON SCOTT CARD
How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy
Every writer is an iron-monger that melts down old junk into new steel.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
Too much is written by the men who can't write about the men who do write.
JACK LONDON
Martin Eden
When you invent something, you're drawing on reservoirs of knowledge that you already have. It's only when you're faithful to the truth that something can come to you from the outside.
ELIF BATUMAN
interview, The Rumpus, April 25, 2012
Let us not, then, lament over the decay and oblivion into which ancient writers descend; they do but submit to the great law of nature, which declares that all sublunary shapes of matter shall be limited in their duration, but which decrees, also, that their elements and vegetable life, passes away, but the vital principle is transmitted to posterity, and the species continue to flourish. Thus, also, do authors beget authors, and having produced a numerous progeny, in a good old age they sleep with their fathers, that is to say, with the authors who preceded them--and from whom they had stolen.
WASHINGTON IRVING
"The Art of Book-Making", The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon
To subvert is not the aim of literature, its value lies in discovering and revealing what is rarely known, little known, thought to be known but in fact not very well known of the truth of the human world. It would seem that truth is the unassailable and most basic quality of literature.
GAO XINGJIAN
Nobel Lecture, 2000