Quotes About Writing

took pen to page, praying for guidance.

I took pen to page, praying for guidance.

I'm afraid that surprise, shock, and regret is the fate of authors when they finally see themselves on the page.

Tossing the chalk thoughtfully for a moment, I decided what to do. I wrote 'The cat sat on the mat' once in copperplate English, then translated into Latin, then French and finally, for good measure, in Italian.

It's easy, after all, not to be a writer. Most people aren't writers, and very little harm comes to them.

The best life for a writer is the life which helps him write the best books he can.

What is the easiest, the most comfortable thing for a writer to do? To congratulate the society in which he lives: to admire its biceps, applaud its progress, tease it endearingly about its follies.

Look, writers aren't perfect , I want to cry, any more than husbands and wives are perfect. The only unfailing rule is, If they seem so, they can't be.

Truths about writing can be framed before you've published a word; truths about life can be framed only when it's too late to make any difference.

perhaps the sweetest moment in writing is the arrival of that idea for a book which never has to be written, which is never sullied with a definite shape, which never needs to be exposed to a less loving gaze than that of its author.

It is a moment when a shift in the nature of literary fame occurs. Previously, a famous writer was a writer who became famous by writing. Wilde pioneered the idea of becoming famous first, and then getting down to the writing. By the end of 1882 he was "still" only a minor poet and diligent lecturer. But he was also famous on two continents and therefore primed for a literary career.

I thought of writing books myself once. I had the ideas; I even made notes. But I was a doctor, married with children. You can only do one thing well: Flaubert knew that.

Film-makers and actors can only show a version of the act, but writers can express what people are thinking, feeling, as well as doing.

One of my sons writes books I can read, but cannot understand, and the other writes books I can understand, but cannot read.

Pase lo que pase –escribió Flaubert cuando estalló la guerra franco-prusiana–, seguiremos siendo unos estúpidos.» ¿Simple pesimismo jactancioso? ¿O se trata de la necesaria aceleración de las expectativas, cuando aún no se puede pensar, actuar o escribir adecuadamente?

When I first began to write, I laid myself the rule [...] that I should write as if my parents were dead. (Page 108, US edition)

mie mi se pare ca romancierii care isi socotesc scrisul o unealt? pus? în slujba politicii dezonoreaz? literatura È™i înal?? în sl?vi, prosteÈ™te, politica...scriitorul care -È™i închipuie c? romanul este calea cea mai direct? prin care intr? în politic? este de regul? un romancier prost, un jurnalist prost È™i un politician lamentabil

All of my books are made of sweat, blood, laughter, cat hair, chocolate and inspiration.

Richards then pulled the pen and ink well close.

The reading and writing of fiction both requires and instills empathy—the insertion of oneself into the life of another.

I haven't published a novel in six years; instead, I fill my departmental hours casting words of praise into the bureaucratic abyss. On multiple occasions, serving on awards committees, I was actually required to write LORs to myself.

We argued for weeks about the existence and then the location of a particular semicolon

To write and not tell the truth? That would be death for any writer. But more, it would be death to the imagination. And if the imagination dies, what would happen to the souls of children?

In order to write the book you want to write, in the end you have to become the person you need to become to write that book.