Quotes About Writing

I write to know what I think.

The peculiarity of being a writer is that the entire enterprise involves the mortal humiliation of seeing one's own words in print.

I don't know what I think until I write about it.

Had he not warned me when I forgot my own notebook that the ability to make a note when something came to mind was the difference between being able to write and not being able to write?

Let me tell you one thing about why writers write: had I known the answer to any of these questions I would never have needed to write a novel.

As a writer, even as a child, long before what I wrote began to be published, I developed a sense that meaning itself was resident in the rhythms of words and sentences and paragraphs.

Given that grief remained the most general of afflictions its literature seemed remarkably spare.

The impulse to write things down is a peculiarly compulsive one, inexplicable to those who do not share it, useful only accidentally, only secondarily, in the way that any compulsion tries to justify itself.

Well, this whole question of how you work out the narrative is very mysterious. It's a good deal more arbitrary than most people who don't do it would ever believe.

I suppose almost everyone who writes is afflicted some of the time by the suspicion that nobody out there is listening

The impulse to write things down is a particularly compulsive one, inexplicable to those who do not share it, useful only accidentally, only secondarily, in the way that any compulsion tries to justify itself.

This "I" was the voice of no author in my house. This "I" was someone who not only knew why Charlotte went to the airport but also knew someone called "Victor." Who was Victor? Who was this narrator? Why was this narrator telling me this story? Let me tell you one thing about why writers write: had I known the answer to any of these questions I would never have needed to write a novel.

All I know about grammar is its infinite power.

That is one last thing to remember: writers are always selling somebody out.

Why do I keep a notebook at all? It is easy to deceive oneself on all those scores. The impulse to write things down is a peculiarly compulsive one, inexplicable to those who do not share it, useful only accidentally, only secondarily, in the way that any compulsion tries to justify itself. ...... Keepers of private notebooks are a different breed altogether, lonely and resistant rearrangers of things, anxious malcontents, children afflicted apparently at birth with some presentiment of loss

Who is the director of dreams, would he care? Was it only by dreaming or writing that I could find out what I thought?

The impulse to write things down is a peculiarly compulsive one, inexplicable to those who do not share it, useful only accidentally, only secondarily, in the way that any compulsion tries to justify itself...Keepers of private notebooks are a different breed altogether, lonely and resistant rearrangers of things, anxious malcontents, children afflicted apparently at birth with some presentiment of loss.

I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I see and what it means…. What is going on in these pictures in my mind?

I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear…. What is going on in these pictures in my mind?

Or was it even a dream? Who is the director of dreams, would he care? Was it only by dreaming or writing that I could find out what I thought.

I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear>

I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I see and what it means.

Why did I write it down? In order to remember, of course, but exactly what was it I wanted to remember? How much of it actually happened? Did any of it? Why do I keep a notebook at all? It is easy to deceive oneself on all those scores. The impulse to write things down is a peculiarly compulsive one, inexplicable to those who do not share it, useful only accidentally, only secondarily, in the way that any compulsion tries to justify itself.

At nineteen I had wanted to write. At forty I still wanted to write, and nothing that had happened in the years between made me any more certain that I could.