Quotes About Writing

I can't write a book commensurate with Shakespeare, but I can write a book by me.

I needed to find my way to write. I need about six hours of uninterrupted time in order to produce about two hours of writing, and when I accepted that and found the way to do it, then I was able to write.

If you can't write your message in a sentence, you can't say it in an hour.

I'm a salami writer. I try to write good salami, but salami is salami.

When ideas come, I write them; when they don't come, I don't.

The idea is to get the pencil moving quickly.

I never thought of myself as a writer, but the simplest thing seemed to be to put a piece of paper in the roller and start typing.

I wrote for twelve years and collected 250 rejection slips before getting any fiction published, so I guess outside reinforcement isn't all that important to me.

For me, writing is the only thing that passes the three tests of metier: (1) when I'm doing it, I don't feel that I should be doing something else instead; (2.) it produces a sense of accomplishment and, once in a while, pride; and (3) it's frightening.

We teach what we need to learn and write what we need to know.

Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!) Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace, And saw, within the moonlight in his room, Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom, An angel, writing in a book of gold; Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold, And to the presence in the room he said - "What writest thou?" The Vision raised its head, And, with a look made all of sweet accord, Answered, "The names of those who love the Lord."

Have you any notion how many books are written about women in the course of one year? Have you any notion how many are written by men? Are you aware that you are, perhaps, the most discussed animal in the universe?

The adjective is the banana peel of the parts of speech.

The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug.

A word after a word after a word is power.

You have to fall in love with hanging around words.

I have this feeling of wending my way or plundering through a mysterious jungle of possibilities when I am writing. This jungle has not been explored by previous writers. It never will be explored. It's endlessly varying as we progress through the experience of time. These words that occur to me come out of my relation to the language which is developing even as I am using it.

In Ireland, a writer is looked upon as a failed conversationalist.

It is a sad fact about our culture that a poet can earn much more money writing or talking about his art than he can by practising it.

Many a fervid man writes books as cold and flat as graveyard stones.

No tears and the writer, no tears and the reader.

There are three difficulties in authorship: to write anything worth the publishing, to find honest men to publish it, and to get sensible men to read it.

This morning I took out a comma and this afternoon I put it back again.

To write is to become disinterested. There is a certain renunciation in art.