Quotes About Writing

A lot of writers that I know have told me that the first book you write, you write about your childhood, whether you want to or not. It calls you back.

What I've always said was, hang in there, let me write what I want to write, and you'll probably like it.

After you've been working fairly intensively on a novel for six months you never want to see the damn thing again.

No one wants a masterpiece knocking around when your own book is looking for attention.

I think that most people who write about music just want to fill some paper. They're not really interested in getting to the heart of something. Otherwise, they wouldn't write what they write.

Any writer takes inspiration from what they read and watch, and over their career works on forming their own voice. I think it was probably Stephen King who made me want to become a writer.

You almost have to create situations in order to write about them, so I live in a constant state of self-imposed poverty. I don't want to live any other way.

I try not to take on the weight or the burden of it. Once it's on the paper, I try to leave it, because I want to surrender to what I'm supposed to write about.

I have no control over my writing. I have lots of good intentions, but no control. There's a story that wants to be told.

When people say, Did you always want to be a writer?, I have to say no! I always WAS a writer.

Well, the secret to writing is writing. It's only a secret to people who don't want to hear it. Writing is how you be a writer.

As I published books, I realized, that's not really what I want. I don't care about the books as much anymore. I just want to write poetry.

Love stories are probably all Ive ever been able to write or want to write.

I don't like having characters as props. I never want a character to be a prop.

The key thing is, don't worry about if anyone is reading you or not. Figure out your voice and figure out what you want to write about, what you're good at, what you like doing.

I have no interest in teaching writers how to sell. I want to teach them how to write. If the process is sound, the product will take care of itself, and sales are likely to follow.

Except for the usual house chores, doing income tax, etc., I am free to write whenever I want.

The best point of my novels, I think, is their humor. I want to keep many my works humorous.

Whether I'm writing about plumbers or psychics or psychic plumbers, I want to find a creative space that imprisons me usefully, so I can deviate with purpose.

Books are for the most part willfully and hastily written, as parts of a system to supply a want real or imagined.

No one grows up thinking they want to be a ghostwriter. No one plans on that job.

When I first began writing In the Country of Men all I had was the voice of the protagonist. He intrigued me and my desire to want to know him and his world became almost compulsive.

I love writing and can't imagine not being able to do it. I want an easy life and if it had been difficult I wouldn't be doing it. I do admire writers who do it even though it costs them.

At the age of thirty-five, I have just begun to become the kind of person who could understand the kind of book I would want to write.