Quotes About Writing

James Patterson

James Patterson

James Patterson

Stop trying to write sentences and start trying to write stories.

James Patterson

BRAINSTORMING! Every night after dinner—which is usually something like tuna noodle casserole made with cream-of-wallpaper soup—I escape to the privacy of my bedroom.

James Patterson

James Patterson

James Patterson

James Patterson

James Patterson

James Patterson

So anyway, ta-da, here it is, book fans, and all of you in need of AR points at school

James Patterson

James Patterson

James Patterson

ever, according to Guinness World Records. Since his first novel won the Edgar Award in 1976, James

James Patterson

Fortunately or unfortunately, NaNoWriMo requires you to write at a breakneck pace, so I got used to just pushing on through.

When I started out in the early 1930s, there were a great many magazines that published short stories. Unfortunately, the short-story market has dwindled to almost nothing.

I think a lot of writers, male and female, write as if their parents were killed in a car accident when they were 2, and they have no one to hold accountable. And unfortunately, I don't have that. I have parents who I care about what they think.

I need to be very isolated to write, and unfortunately isolation is often quite difficult to find. My ideal writing environment would be a country house hotel in the middle of nowhere, with full room service.

I'm not a good writer, and I don't care. Unfortunately, after I left college, I didn't have time much for literature. I wish I did. Most of the time I read documents, and that's not going to help your writing. But I'm a very logical writer, and you can't get out of me. Once I've nailed you, you're finished.

Before I sat down and became a writer, before I began to do it habitually and for my living, there was a decades-long stretch when I was terrified that it would suck, so I didn't write. I think that marks a lot of people, a real terror at being bad at something, and unfortunately, you are always bad before you can get a little better.