Quotes About Writing

In a time when both rights and reason are under several kinds of open and covert attack, the life and writing of Thomas Paine will always be part of the arsenal on which we shall need to depend.

as I contemplate dead hands and the loss of the transmission belts that connect me to writing and thinking.

that an article of mine was well argued but dull, and advised me briskly to write "more like the way you talk.

There was also the time that competitors were asked to submit a paragraph of a Graham Greene parody: Greene himself entered under a pseudonym and placed third.

There's nothing like not writing for making you unhappy.

And even if my voice dies before I do, I shall continue to write polemics against religious delusions, at least until it's hello darkness my old friend.

And even if my voice goes before I do, I shall continue to write polemics against religious delusions, at least until it's hello darkness my old friend.

The great thing about writing a book is that it brings you into contact with people whose opinions you should have canvassed before you ever pressed pen to paper. They write to you. They telephone you. They come to your bookstore events and give you things to read that you should have read already. It's this dialectical process that makes me glad I chose the profession I did: a free education that goes on for a lifetime.

It seemed to me then that to have published a book - any kind of book - would be the greatest possible happiness I could ask from life.

I think', said Sally, 'it must be marvellous to be a novelist. You're frightfully dreamy and unpractical and unbusinesslike, and people imagine they can fairly swindle you as much as they want - and then you sit down and write a book about them which fairly shows them what swine they all are, and it's the most terrific success and you make pots of money.

From 1929 to 1933, [age 25-29] I lived almost continuously in Berlin, with only occasional visits to other parts of Germany and to England. Already, during that time, I had made up my mind that I would one day write about the people I'd met and the experiences I was having. So I kept a detailed diary, which in due course provided raw material for all my Berlin stories. [from preface]

The pension was run by a happy-go-lucky Englishman, who used to laugh at my industry and tell me I ought to go swimming, while I was still young. "After all, old boy, I mean to say, will it matter a hundred years from now if you wrote that yarn or not?

If you really have talent, you know, you'll go on writing - whatever people say to you.

Baš me sad neobi?no zaokuplja moj novi roman. Misle?i o njemu, ja ?esto odlazim sam na duga?ke šetnje.

I have kept this diary doggedly, day by day, because I believe a continuous record, no matter how full of trivialities, will always gradually reveal something of the subconscious mind behind it. I've never regretted keeping a diary yet. There are always a few nuggets of literary value under all that sand.

Words, words, words, a million million words circle in my head like hawks, waiting to dive onto the page to rend and tear the only two words I want to write. Why me?

You sure about this writer thing son?

If you like what you're reading, I probably wrote it.

Christopher Moore is the author of ten novels, including this one. He began writing at age six and became the oldest known child prodigy when, in his early thirties, he published his first novel.

It got so that when he closed his eyes, letters and words danced in his mind. He thought of little else during that time.

But I remember when I read The Way of Kings, there were two things that struck me, like from a technical standpoint—it felt like you tackled a fantasy world almost as if you were writing science fiction.

Living is not an art, but to write of life is. Life is a series of accidents and anticlimaxes, misremembered and misunderstood, with lessons only dimly learned. Life is disorganized, lacks shape, lacks story.

Somedays you have to write even when you think you're putting out crap. You just need to tell yourself that you'll fix the problems later, and by then, they might not even be problems anymore. The challenge of writing a novel has always been to let loose with a beautifully flawed first draft, and to constantly fight belief you're chiseling words in stone each time you type.

You can write about anything, and if you write well enough, even the reader with no intrinsic interest in the subject will become involved.