Quotes About Writing

I always had a superstitious fear of setting up a too well-designed writing place and then finding that the writing had absconded.

I think we writers are very superstitious. We don't know why it's working when it's working, so we attach cause and effect.

Writing is a good creative outlet... it's a supplement to my music.

I actually went into writing first to supplement my income, which was a strange thing to do, and actually failed.

I always thought of words as art supplies.

I've supported myself by writing since 1992, and I'm probably very nearly unemployable by now because employers are likely to be put off by the long gap.

I had been encouraged a lot by my parents and my sixth grade teacher, James Doyle at Main Street Elementary School. He was an early supporter of my writing ability.

I don't regret writing my book at all. I wrote it for the United supporters to give them a proper insight into what it is like inside the club, and what it is like to be a Manchester United player. I think I did that in an honest way.

In 1911, Edgar Rice Burroughs, having failed at everything else, decided to write a novel. He was then in his mid-thirties, married with two children, barely supporting his family as the agent for a pencil-sharpener business.

I don't think I anticipated supporting myself as a writer... I expected I would have to be a teacher or a journalist, that I wouldn't just write full time. It's such a part of my life, and in some ways, it's a very unromantic part of my life. It's almost, to me, like breathing. I don't think about whether I like it or not.

I got a job in advertising. So even though I was writing, I was always supporting myself. That's the thing that would matter for my father, who was absolutely a creature of the Great Depression.

Well, of course it was a very trying time for me, and fortunately I had a lot of people who were supportive. A lot of people who were writing and calling and saying they were praying for me. Some people sent me Scripture, and that helped.

I was very lucky to befriend many authors before even signing with an agent, and they were all so supportive of me when I told them I was in the middle of my first book.

To make time for writing, one has to take time out from somewhere. Obviously, a fair amount of time that you spend with the family gets compromised. But my family has been very understanding and supportive.

In terms of moments that pushed me toward becoming a writer... My parents, my wife, and my English teacher in the 8th grade were all hugely supportive at moments during my development as a writer that were critical, where I might have quit when things got too hard.

I'm a natural clown, I suppose, in writing, and one has to accept that; I can't do anything about it. I have written one or two novels which are not specifically funny. I wrote a study of Shakespeare which was not intended to be funny, but some people regard it as such.

Quite a lot of people wanted me to write about my family, I suppose for fairly obvious reasons, and there was always something that would stop me, I thought they were asking me for the wrong motives.

I suppose with any good writing and interesting characters, you can have that awfully overused word: a journey.

It's easy to write a good column if you've got good information. It's hard if you have to depend on style alone. I suppose there are people who can get away with styling on a regular basis. I'm not one of them. You're probably not, either.

When you're working with a smaller budget I suppose one of the things that has to be in your mind when you are writing is that you have to keep the characters down to a minimum.

When once the itch of literature comes over a man, nothing can cure it but the scratching of a pen. But if you have not a pen, I suppose you must scratch any way you can.

As for the historical inspirations I drew on in writing The Snow Queen, I suppose I would call them more cross-cultural inspirations, though they frequently involve past societies as well as present day ones.

And if there was something, suppose I wanted to write something really damning or embarrassing about one of the owners, that would really be a problem on the NFL's site.

I never think about the actual process of writing. I suppose I have a superstition about examining it too closely.