Quotes About Writing

The difficulty of literature is not to write, but to write what you mean not to affect your reader, but to affect him precisely as you wish.

Well, well, Henry James is pretty good, though he is of the nineteenth century, and that glaringly.

I kept always two books in my pocket, one to read, one to write in.

Those blessèd structures, plot and rhyme— why are they no help to me now I want to make something imagined, not recalled?

History has to live with what was here, clutching and close to fumbling all we had - it is so dull and gruesome how we die, unlike writing, life never finishes.

I get annoyed when a self-indulgent writer just shows off what he knows but doesn't really tell a story. To me storytelling is first a craft. Then if you're lucky, it becomes an art form. But first, it's got to be a craft.. You've got to have a beginning, middle and end. And I have sort of applied the theatrical principles to writing. Throw the story in the air and see what's going to happen.

The great ages of prose are the ages in which men shave. The great ages of poetry are those in which they allow their beards to grow.

The essential key for writing is to write regularly — like it or not — great ideas come often by writing; releasing the subconscious — waiting for inspiration and ideas will not work, but it does help to have a notebook with you all the time for sudden brainstorms or inspiration.

ROBERT MASELLO is the author of many previous works of fiction and nonfiction, most recently the novels Blood and Ice and The Medusa Amulet. A native of Evanston, Illinois, he studied writing under the novelists Robert Stone and Geoffrey Wolff at Princeton, and has since taught and lectured at many leading universities. For six years, he was the visiting lecturer in literature at Claremont McKenna College. He now lives and works in Santa Monica,

magazine, People, Newsday, and the Washington Post. A long-standing member of the Writers Guild of America, he has taught and lectured at colleges and universities nationwide, including the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He also served as visiting lecturer in literature at Claremont McKenna College for

that feeling you might call "writer's block" is actually fear. The

Life is absurd. But there is one meaningful thing, one inarguable thing, and that is that there is suffering. Fine writing helps alleviate that suffering – and anything that puts meaning and beauty into the world in the form of story, helps people to live with more peace and purpose and balance, is deeply worthwhile.

Anxious, inexperienced writers obey rules. Rebellious, unschooled writers break rules. Artists master the form.

You may think you know, but you don't know you know until you can write it down. Research is not daydreaming. Explore your past, relive it, then write it down. In your head it's only memory, but written down it becomes working knowledge. Now with the bile of fear in your belly, write an honest, one-of-a-kind scene.

The first draft of anything is shit. — ERNEST HEMINGWAY

When talented people write badly it's generally for one of two reasons: Either they're blinded by an idea they feel compelled to prove or they're driven by an emotion they must express.

For most writers, the knowledge they gain from reading and study equals or outweighs experience, especially if that experience goes unexamined.

Within the first pages of a screenplay a reader can judge the relative skill of the writer simply by noting how he handles exposition.

Henry James wrote brilliantly about story art in the prefaces to his novels, and once asked: "What, after all, is an event?" An event, he said, could be as little as a woman putting her hand on the table and looking at you "that certain way.

The writer works at his skills until knowledge shifts from the left side of the brain to the right

La vida es conflicto. Ésa es su naturaleza. El escritor debe decidir dónde y cómo orquestar su lucha.

Write every day, line by line, page by page, hour by hour. Do this despite fear. For above all else, beyond imagination and skill, what the world asks of you is courage, courage to risk rejection, ridicule and failure. As you follow the quest for stories told with meaning and beauty, study thoughtfully but write boldly. Then, like the hero of the fable, your dance will dazzle the world.

When talented people write badly, it's generally for one of two reasons: Either they're blinded by an idea they feel compelled to prove of they're driven by an emotion they must express. When talented people write well, it is generally for this reason: They're moved by a desire to touch the audience.

We rarely know where we are going; writing is a discovery.