Quotes About Writing

Racist writing is a craft failure.

The failure of The Cable Guy impacted my career. I had to start writing and acting again.

It is bound to be a failure, every book is a failure, but I do know with some clarity what kind of book I want to write.

Fall makes me think that if I fail horribly at this art thing, and then fail horribly with this writing thing, I'll go run a pumpkin patch.

Writing is an act of faith, not a trick of grammar.

To write for children at all is an act of faith.

It's an act of faith to be a writer in a postliterate world.

When I write, I put one foot in front of the other. It's an act of faith. I just follow my heart.

To be accurate, write; to remember, write; to know thine own mind, write. And a written prayer is a prayer of faith, special, sure, and to be answered.

I was going to be a writer. One person believed I could do it: my mom. Having her faith in me was like carrying around the Hammer of Thor.

Writing... is an act of faith: I believe it's also an act of hope, the hope that things can get better than they are.

My four articles of faith: clarity, simplicity, brevity and humanity.

Writing is a leap of faith. But how wonderful that the person you're putting faith in is yourself.

You cannot be a good writer of serious fiction if you are not depressed.

Dreams are illustrations from the book your soul is writing about you.

In principle, this is a useful idea for writers at all stages: if a good story plot somehow won't work out right, it may be that the point of view is in the wrong place.) There

Any one could write a book," said the taxi driver. "Yes, they could, but they DON'T," said Maeve Binchy

229. I am writing all this down in blue ink, so as to remember that all words, not just some, are written in water.

Am I sitting here now, months later, in Los Angeles, writing all this down, because I want my life to matter? Maybe so. But I don't want it to matter more than others. I want to remember, or to learn, how to live as if it matters, as if they all matter, even if they don't.

At a job interview at a university, three men sitting across from me at a table. On my cv it says that I am currently working on a book about the color blue. I have been saying this for years without writing a word. It is, perhaps, my way of making my life feel "in progress" rather than a sleeve of ash falling off a lit cigarette.

The question up for debate between Socrates and Phaedrus is whether the written word kills memory or aids it--whether it cripples the mind's power, or whether it cures it of its forgetfulness.

My writing is riddled with such tics of uncertainty. I have no excuse or solution, save to allow myself the tremblings, then go back in later and slash them out. In this way I edit myself into a boldness that is neither native nor foreign to me.

Most of my writing usually feels to me like a bad idea, which makes it hard for me to know which ideas feel bad because they have merit, and which ones feel bad because they don't

Everywhere I go as a writer—especially if I'm in drag as a "memoirist"—such fears seem to be first and foremost on people's minds. People seem hungry, above all else, for permission, and a guarantee against bad consequences. The first, I try to give; the second is beyond my power.)