Quotes About Writing

I write about people I think are interesting, and then I discuss it with my editor, and she decides if she thinks it will be interesting to children as well. If I have no great interest in the subject, I find the work to be terribly boring. And if I find the person interesting, I love the research part and, by extension, the writing as well.

I think, with most writers, their neurosis is finishing things. I have a different neurosis. I'm terribly anxious when it's not finished. Then I become really difficult to live with.

I think Dan Brown is a terribly bad writer, but he has cliff-hangers after every chapter which makes you continue reading.

Trying to project our expectations and our desires onto the sci-fi being written in China now isn't terribly helpful.

I am terribly interested in the paragraph: the paragraph as an object, the construction, and the possibilities of what a paragraph can do.

I didn't have to keep a bloody journal. It's terribly boring keeping a journal anyway. I hate it. You spend more time writing down life instead of living it.

My attitude to writing is like when you do wallpapering, you remember where all the little bits are that don't meet. And then your friends say: It's terrific!

The challenge in fiction is to write a terrific story. The challenge in journalism is to communicate solid, objective information. The challenge in creative non-fiction is to do it both and to do it well.

I binge-watched this show 'Damages.' Glenn Close and Rose Byrne are so good. Lily Tomlin is in it. You see all these great actors, and the writing is terrific. There are a lot of shows like that.

Bruce Sterling is one terrific writer and he's relatively new, but I don't know how long he's been doing it; he probably doesn't need the publicity anymore!

I had never read Upton Sinclair. I didn't read 'The Jungle' in high school or anything like that. But it's pretty terrific writing.

I like terrific writing, but I also like a terrific story. My favorite books have both, and they're by contemporary, commercial American writers.

If you can actually get someone to sit on the edge of their seat and feel nervous if there's a knock at the door, then you've done something pretty terrific as a writer.

In my view, the ebook world for both established and new authors is a terrific new and exciting format. It is a format that will bring forth many new writers to publishing.

People forget that writers start off being readers. We all love it when we find a terrific read, and we want to let people know about it.

A terrific exercise is to take a paragraph of someone's writing who has a really strong style, and using their structure, substitute your own words for theirs, and see how they achieved their effects.

For every Steven King, there are a dozen guys like me who make a good living. For every David Brin, there are a dozen authors who have managed to make it their day job. For each of them, there are a dozen more for whom writing is a terrific supplement.

I'm terrified of cliches.

Most of my life I was particularly terrified of speaking up, because I had a speech impediment, which made it difficult to pronounce certain letters, sounds, and I felt like I was fine writing on the page, but once I got on stage, I was worried my words might jumble and stumble.

No one inspired me to write, but writer Harlan Ellison terrified me into getting published.

I do think that something of the effect I have on people is to put everything on an edge where they're both infatuated with a kind of charmingness happening in the person or in the writing, and also flatly terrified by a revelation or acceptance of revelation that's almost happening, never quite totally happening.

I'm always terrified when I'm writing.

I'm terrified of writing at night, for then I can't sleep. So I start slowly, slowly writing in the morning and go on into the late afternoon.

I thought of Jeff Bridges in 'Hell or High Water' and Ben Foster, and I kept trying very hard not to, because you're terrified you're going to write this thing that then feeds specifically to this one person that then won't do it.