Quotes About Writing

I remember receiving hate mail saying, "Tell this talking Trappist who took a vow of silence to shut up!" Though silence is a traditional part of their lives, Trappists take no such vow. Maintaining silence (to increase contemplation) does not by itself rule out communication (which they do in sign language). I had an answer for the hate-mongers: "Writing is a form of contemplation.

as soon as you think of yourself as teaching contemplation to others, you make another mistake. No one teaches contemplation except God, who gives it. The best you can do is write something that will serve as an occasion for someone else to realize what God wants of him.

I might as well add that I have enjoyed writing this book more than any other I can remember.

If a writer is so cautious that he never writes anything that cannot be criticized, he will never be able to write anything that can be read. If you want to help other people you have got to make up your mind to write things that some men will condemn.

IF you write for God you will reach many men and bring them joy. If you write for men—you may make some money and you may give someone a little joy and you may make a noise in the world, for a little while.

IF you write for God you will reach many men and bring them joy. If you write for men—you may make some money and you may give someone a little joy and you may make a noise in the world, for a little while. If you write only for yourself you can read what you yourself have written and after ten minutes you will be so disgusted you will wish that you were dead.

writing these things down, they clarify themselves, they move in words and sentences, and so take shape while in my own mind they are formless and not articulate.

A bad book about the love of God remains a bad book, even though it may be about the love of God. There are many who think that because they have written about God, they have written good books. Then men pick up these books and say: if the ones who say they believe in God cannot find anything better than this to say about it, their religion cannot be worth much.

Any writer who puts his words and thoughts out into the public is going to be criticized.

It takes, unhappily, no more than a desk and writing supplies to turn any room into a confessional.

It takes, unhappily, no more than a desk and writing supplies to turn any room into a confessional. This may have nothing to do with the acts we have committed, or the humors we do go in and out of. It may be only the room--a cube--having no persuasive powers of its own. The room simply is. To occupy it, and find a metaphor there for memory, is our own fault.

It is the only life I care about—to write, to go out occasionally and 'lose myself' looking and hearing and then to come back and write again. At any rate that's the life I've chosen.

but that is the satisfaction of writing - one can impersonate so many people.

You know the feeling that a great writer gives you: my spirit has been fed and refreshed; it has partaken of something new.

The late evening is the time of times. Then with that unearthly beauty before one it is not hard to realise how far one has to go. To write something that will be worthy of that rising moon, that pale light.

I hate whisky. Every time I take it into my mouth my stomach rises against it, and the stuff they keep here is sure to be particularly vile. I only ordered it because I am going to write about an Englishman. We French are incredibly old-fashioned and out of date still in some ways.

Would you not like to try all sorts of lives - one is so very small - but that is the satisfaction of writing - one can impersonate so many people.

I am a recluse at present & do nothing but write & read & read & write

To be alive and to be a 'writer' is enough.

Elle faisait confiance à la vie pour lui envoyer des indices, des idées, des détails qu'elle convertirait en histoires. C'est comme ça qu'elle avait écrit son premier livre. En ouvrant grand les yeux sur le monde. En écoutant, en observant, en reniflant. C'est comme ça aussi qu'on ne vieillit pas. On vieillit quand on s'enferme, on refuse de voir, d'entendre ou de respirer. La vie et l'écriture, ça va souvent ensemble.

Léautaud decía «escribid como si escribieseis una carta, no releáis, no me gusta la gran literatura, sólo me gusta la conversación escrita».

There's a friend at the end of your pen which you can use to help you solve personal or business problems, get to know all the different parts of yourself, explore your creativity, heal your relationships, develop your intuition

I stole the character straight out of Georgette's A Civil Contract." Jenny considered herself on a first name basis with the late, legendary Regency novelist Georgette Heyer.

Poets are immersed in process, and I mean process not as an amorphous blur but as a discipline. The hard work of writing has taught me that in matters of the heart, such as writing, or faith, there is no right or wrong way to do it, but only the way of your life. Just paying attention will teach you what bears fruit and what doesn't. But it will be necessary to revise--to doodle, scratch out, erase, even make a mess of things--in order to make it come out right.