Quotes About Writing

We postpone our literary work until we have more ripeness and skill to write, and we one day discover that our literary talent wasa youthful effervescence which we have now lost.

I have never thought of writing as hard work, but I have worked hard to find a voice.

The tough thing about writing is you go into a room alone, you close the door and you do your work.

Writing is hard work; its also the best job Ive ever had.

It is a great pity that every human being does not, at an early stage of his life, have to write a historical work. He would then realize that the human race is in quite a jam about truth.

It's rare that a good writer will sit down and write a good script. Writers are greedy too, and they don't want to work without getting paid. But quality will find its way out.

The manuscript you submit [should not] contain any flaws that you can identify - it is up to the writer to do the work, rather than counting on some stranger in Manhattan to do it for him.

As a writer, it's fun to free yourself enough to tap into some darker elements of your personality that sometimes I don't even know exist. It doesn't feel like work.

I used to work very long hours. Then I started to realize that the stuff that I was writing in the late afternoons, I was generally throwing out. So I quit earlier than I used to.

It's when you've stopped writing and are doing other things, especially when you're asleep, that the real work is done.

I've always been a writer, actually. Not many people assume that, but I kinda keep quiet about anything that I do until I'm ready to show it. It keeps me humble and also makes me work towards a goal.

Work. Write. Read. Keep putting words on the page, because that's the only way you'll get better.

If I had simply wanted to trade on an insult to Islam, I could have done it in a sentence rather than writing a 250,000-word novel, a work of fiction.

When I'm writing a book, sentence by sentence, I'm not thinking theoretically. I'm just trying to work out the story from inside the characters I've got.

The work of a correct and regular writer is a garden accurately formed and diligently planted, varied with shades, and scented with flowers.

I look upon this as I did upon the Dictionary: it is all work, and my inducement to it is not love or desire of fame, but the want of money, which is the only motive to writing that I know of.

When I was writing Caramelo the last couple of years, a sixty-hour work week was normal. And now I'm lucky if I have eight hours.

The way I sometimes approach my work, when I look at a script for the first time, is to identify what the archetypes are and what the writing is trying to do in that context.

I suppose if I was to have to pick a few, Ursula LeGuin would have to top the list. It was while reading her work that I decided I wanted to be an author.

Even if you know a character really well, there's no formula for what jokes will work and what won't.

One thing for sure is it will be written in the Icelandic language. All of my literary work is.

Initially I only decided to try and write a novel because I wasn't getting enough screenwriting work. It wasn't a long-held ambition, and certainly the idea came first.

Because I work quite slowly, I have to keep myself interested over a long research and writing period. So I can't see myself writing about modern middle-class Londoners anytime soon.

A lot of scientists hate writing. Most scientists love being in the lab and doing the work and when the work is done, they are finished.