Quotes About Writing

I don't know why my books are so popular. I'm writing to please only myself, a book I would like to read.

When I first started I was obsessed--putting in 16 hours a day, seven days a week, and loving it. My in-laws told my husband that perhaps he should get some help for me. Once the book was published it was OK because writers can be a little crazy.

I love being able to learn whatever I want and earn a living at it. Research is fun; writing is hard work.

You learn to write by writing, and by reading and thinking about how writers have created their characters and invented their stories. If you are not a reader, don't even think about being a writer.

I could not think without writing.

All of writing is a huge lake. There are great rivers that feed the lake, like Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky. And then there are mere trickles, like Jean Rhys. All that matters is feeding the lake. I don't matter. The lake matters. You must keep feeding the lake.

It never occurs to her that she will not be a writer and only occasionally does it occur to her, depressingly, that she is going to grow into a woman, not a man.

I read Wolfe's new book _ The Story of a Novel_ and as usual he stole the whole damn thing from me. I am going to write and say will you please stop writing books you bastard.

I have discovered that writing is rather like talking: it is very difficult to start, but once you have actually got going it can also be very difficult to stop. The reason I don't want to stop is that I am scared of being on my own. At least when I'm writing this journal it's like conversing with someone.

I came up with a pen and tablet hoping to write an immortal short story, but I've been having a dreadful time with my heroine— I CAN'T make her behave as I want her to behave; so I've abandoned her for the moment, and am writing to you.

I've been hearing about Shakespeare all my life, but I had no idea he really wrote so well; I always suspected him of going largely on his reputation.

I don't believe it pays to be a great author.

Is it snowing where you are? All the world that I see from my tower is draped in white and the flakes are coming down as big as pop-corns. It's late afternoon - the sun is just setting (a cold yellow colour) behind some colder violet hills, and I am up in my window seat using the last light to write to you.

bond paper. Margins are usually set for a minimum of 1¼ inches at the top and at least one inch on the left and right sides and at the bottom. Almost all professional letters now use the "block form"—that is, lines of type are flush with the left margin and paragraphs are not indented. Envelopes should match the letter paper. Business letters typically

Cette fois-ci j'ai choisi un axe, sans m'interdire pour autant d'emprunter quelques chemins de traverse, et cet axe je l'ai défini dès les premières lignes comme étant ma relation au langage (il se peut que ce livre ne soit qu'une version personnelle des Mots de Sartre...).

plus cher et le plus inaccessible reste celui d'écrire ce qu'on appelle avec dédain un roman de gare, celui qu'on ouvre à Austerlitz et qu'on laisse sur la banquette à Angoulême, en ayant juste sauté quelques pages de description (ça

L'expérience même n'était pas nécessaire. Sartre, j'en aurais juré, ne s'était jamais risqué sur des skis nautiques et pourtant il trouvait le moyen de décrire – et sur des pages – la jouissance du skieur. Ah ! comme l'intelligence pouvait être gaie !

me voici dans l'île – pour ressentir le besoin d'une écriture plus vagabonde qui, à l'extrême, n'a d'autre objet qu'elle-même : ce qu'on nomme littérature.

What I miss most since computers is the existence of rough drafts. […]. I miss the mistakes, the words scribbled in the margin, the chaos, the arrows pointing all over the place – all those signs of movement, of life, of unresolved searching.

I don't write for any group. I write to bring about a change in consciousness.

La clarté est la souveraine politesse de qui manie une plume . (Clarity is the sovereign politeness of the one who wields a pen.)

I am always astonished at how so much writing about old movies assumes that the audience believed everything in them. Of course we didn't. We entered into the joyful conspiracy of moviegoing.

later drafts of this novel and encouraging me

You have a rare and marvelous gift with words.