Quotes About Writing

It's hard for me to think of writing a novel, because it takes so long.

My father had always identified himself as a writer to my mother when they met. When they met, he was writing this great novel, there was no doubt about it. Part of why she left him was this delusion of greatness and identifying it very directly with being an artist.

I had thought of writing, actually, and that later on I'd be a novelist.

I wasn't taking myself seriously as a novelist, and then it became my day job.

When I was 30 or so - by that time I had become an assistant D.A. - I decided I would try to write a novel. To be clear: I did not decide to become a novelist. Honestly, it never crossed my mind that I could actually earn a living as a professional novelist.

I'm a novelist. I'm not a crusader, and I'm not an editorial writer. And I'm not writing fiction to convince anybody of anything.

I become a first-time novelist and a senior citizen on the same day.

I never wanted to be a Cold War novelist.

I wanted to write about the Korean War, but I had no entry into it that made the kind of sense it needs to make for a novelist.

I've always thought a novelist only has one character, and that is himself or herself. In my case, me.

He was interviewed in the early '60s by a young novelist, Pati Hill.

I thought I wanted to be a journalist or a novelist.

I think that's the most important job of a novelist - to bring authority to their writing.

I wanted to be a novelist for so long.

I always wanted to be a writer, and I did want to be a novelist. In college I took a couple of classes that taught me I would never be a novelist. I discovered I had no imagination. My short stories were always thinly veiled memoir.

I'm not a biographer, I'm a novelist.

I hadn't ever felt any particular calling to be a novelist, and I clearly remember telling a friend of mine about six months before I started work on 'Elsewhere' that I would never write a novel.

I knew I'd always be a second-rate academic, and I thought, 'Well, I'd rather be a second-rate novelist or even a third-rate one'.

I've always liked the idea that writing is a form of travel. And I started my writing career as a mystery novelist for adults.

In high school, I wanted to be an actress. Until I got to college and took some creative writing courses. Then I decided I wanted to become a novelist.

I'm a novelist first, and I wrote a bunch of books, and everything I write, I just find people are more interesting when there's an element of humor to it.

I don't know if a novelist ever fully detaches him- or herself from what they wrote and the way they wrote it. I can watch 'Presumed Innocent' again and again, and I will always be bothered by the same things that will never bother anybody else.

I'm a successful novelist, and I've been a lucky one, so I don't want to cry the poor mouth. Writing has never been easy.

As a young, ambitious novelist, writing for kids never crossed my mind.