Quotes About Writing

You can't write well what you don't read for pleasure. If it doesn't entertain you, it's not going to entertain anyone else.

I think writer is a word without gender, and a good writer observes, absorbs, hopefully empathizes then translates that into character and story. You don't have to do or be or have experienced, traveled to, but you have to imagine all of that, very well–and believe it completely during the bubble of the work.

You can fix a bad page. You can't fix a blank one.

I get pretty opinionated about books.

Grayson: Fiction is just a lie anyway. Brianna: But it's not - it's a different kind of truth - it would be your truth at the time of the writing, wouldn't it?

Being a good writer meant he could make a living and do as he chose. Being a great one would bring responsibilities and expectations he had no desire to face.

Writing had never become routine for him, but remained a constant surprise. He was always surprised at how much fun it was, once it all got moving. And never failed to be surprised at how bloody hard it was. It was like having an intense, frustrating love affair with a capricious, gorgeous, and often mean-spirited woman. He loved every moment of it.

If I were writing a book I'd talk about it all the time, to everyone. People would start to avoid me, so I'd seek out complete strangers and talk about it until they, too, avoided me.

I don't think you can write - at least not well - if you don't love stories, love the written word.

A writer never finds the time to write. A writer makes it. If you don't have the drive, the discipline, and the desire, then you can have all the talent in the world, and you aren't going to finish a book.

I can fix a bad page. I can't fix a blank one.

Maybe its easier to write a story than send that story off and face rejection. - And if you don't send it off, see what's what, it's already rejected, isn't it?

You know her, then?

She sighed once, wishing she had a talent for the details of telling stories. She wasn't bad at themes, she mused, but she could never figure out how to turn a theme into an engaging tale. So she read instead, and admired those who could.

You don't write what you know, or you would write one thing. I never understood that. You write what you want to find out.

Action, reaction, motivation, emotion, all have to come from the characters. Writing a love scene requires the same elements from the writer as any other.

good a writer." "I'm not bad, but you're right, book form isn't my strength. I'll hire a ghost this time.

I've obliterated three days trying to come up with an elegant way to write what I'm about to write, but I think the least elegant way is probably best: I like Kanye West.

So this, it seems, is the key for authors who want to live forever: You need to write about important things without actually writing about them. I

Sometimes writing is like talking to a stranger who's exactly like yourself in every possible way, only to realize that this stranger is as boring as shit.

That's why I write, because life never works except in retrospect. You can't control life, at least you can control your version.

The worst part of writing fiction is the fear of wasting your life behind a keyboard. The idea that, dying, you'll realize you only lived on paper. Your only adventures were make-believe, and while the world fought and kissed, you sat in some dark room masturbating and making money.

Ideas come at any moment -- except when you demand them. Most ideas come while I'm physically active, at the gym, with friends, gardening, so I always carry pen and paper. My first draft is always written in longhand. But once the first dozen chapters, more like short stories, are written, then momentum builds until I can't leave the project until it's done.

So this is why I write. Because most times, your life isn't funny the first time through. Most times, you can hardly stand it. That's why I write, because life never works except in retrospect. And writing makes you look back. Because since you can't control life, at least you can control your version.