Quotes About Writing

I write longhand on legal pads, about half at home and half in cafes. I drink a lot of water and eat a lot of raw carrots.

Writing, for me, means humility. It's a process that involves fear and doubt, especially if you're writing honestly.

... And the only way to find that honesty is to not overthink it. For your writing to come alive--to be multi-dimensional--you must barter away some control.

Some books make us dream, others bring us face to face with reality, but what matters most to the author is the honesty with which a book is written.

In all honesty, I've written movies that have been made, and the process has not been as satisfying as writing for television.

As with all other aspects of fiction, the key to writing good dialogue is honesty.

I'd written personal essays before, but never on this scale -- never so often and with such, er, honesty. (If by honesty I mean slashing my wrists and hemorrhaging all over the computer screen).

A tear cringed off his cheek and stained her writing on the paper. He didn't wipe it, men must be honest and transparent, they should never wipe their tears.

I would really hope this would make people see the short story as an important art, not just something you played around with until you got a novel.

Every other author may aspire to praise; the lexicographer can only hope to escape reproach.

I didn't start out writing to give children hope, but I'm glad some of them found it.

Beginning writers must appreciate the prerequisites if they hope to become writers. You pay your dues - which takes years.

The beauty of a fragment is that it still supports the hope of brilliant completeness.

Someday I hope to write a book where the royalties will pay for the copies I give away.

Isak Dinesen said that she wrote a little every day, without hope and without despair. I like that.

Write a little every day, without hope, without despair.

I do not so much write a book as sit up with it, as a dying friend. I hold its hand and hope it will get better.

My shorthand answer is that I try to write the kind of book that I would like to read. If I can make it clear and interesting and compelling to me, then I hope maybe it will be for the reader.

Why does the writer write? The writer writes to serve--hopeless ly he writes in the hope that he might serve--not himself and not others, but that great cold elemental grace that knows us.

If you're going to write something, that's going to be read by people, a lot of people, you hope it will not only entertain them but maybe do them some good in some way.

My main interests right now are to publish, to write, to explicate various views which I hope have an impact on thinking people.

There are a number of people without whom I could not have written this book, but I hope you don't hold that against them. They are all fine people, and they had no idea how it would turn out.

I seat myself at the typewriter and hope, and lurk.

He who would not be frustrate of his hope to write well hereafter in laudable things ought himself to be a true poem.