Quotes About Writing

I do not belong to this world. I continue to write everything in longhand. If I have to see something on the Internet, I ask my secretary or students. I am lucky, because I have people who do it for me.

Back when I taught middle school and wrote adult mysteries, my students often asked me why I wasn't writing for kids. I never had a good answer for them. It took me a long time to realize they were right.

I went to Colby College in Waterville, ME and did picture it when I was writing 'Cum Laude.' So many of the physical details were included, like the loop where people jogged. The story of the chapel is also borrowed from Colby... but the students and cast of characters are fictional.

I always tell my students that, in fiction, the opening is a clue to the work's DNA: not only what it is, but what it will become, where it will lead you.

I tell my students you have an absolute right to write about people you know and love. You do. But the kicker is you have a responsibility to make the characters large enough that you will not have sinned against them.

I tell students they will know they are getting somewhere when a scene is so painful they can just barely bring themselves to write about it. A writer has to draw blood.

I admired what my students were writing, but I think their improvement doesn't directly result from me but from being in a class, being with each other.

I am always urging my students to honor their writing practice, to set up a schedule.

I've learned a lot about writing from listening to my students talk.

I always tell my students, 'If you walk around with your eyes and ears open, you can't possibly live long enough to write all the novels you'll encounter.'

There are very few works of fiction that take you inside the heads of all characters. I tell my writing students that one of the most important questions to ask yourself when you begin writing a story is this: Whose story is it? You need to make a commitment to one or perhaps a few characters.

I studied history and English in college, got a master's in writing, but I was always sort of an autodidact in science.

I studied writing at NYU. I graduated high school in Nashville and then went to the creative writing program, and in the first year, that's when I wrote 'Kids.'

I studied journalism, though I never really became a scribe.

It took three years to put Shakespeare's words together, there were a lot of words to be studied and a lot of words to be sorted out, and it proved to be a major project.

I went to college and studied writing, and I got involved in theater. It's always been my passion.

I can move my characters through it easily, because I understand the background; I've really studied it.

To me, all writing is like music. And especially dialogue. I studied music in college; that is what I wanted to be, a composer. Acting got me sidetracked.

Maybe if I'd studied writing instead of anthropology, I'd be more sensible. You know - pick a genre, follow the rules, stay in the box - but let's face it. Sensible people don't major in anthropology.

Literature has always been a part of my life. I studied history and literature in college. My mother is a novelist; I grew up around books.

I studied the short story as part of my creative writing course at university but then set off as a novelist. Generally, there is a sense that even if you want to write short stories, you need to do a novel first.

I'm using my degree. You know, I studied English and American literature in college, and now I'm an American poet.

By the time I wrote my memoir, 'Men We Reaped,' I had been running from writing it for a long time. When the events in the book were happening, I knew I'd probably write about them one day. I didn't want to. I'd studied fiction, and I was committed to establishing myself as a fiction writer first.

Before I worked on film, I studied the theatre, and I expected that I would spend my whole career in theatre. Gradually, I started writing for the cinema. However, I feel grateful towards the theatre. I love working with spectators, and I love this experience with the theatre, and I like theatre culture.