Quotes About Writing

Orwell is almost our litmus test. Some of his satirical writing looks like reality these days.

It took me at least all my 20s and some of my 30s to get the confidence to realise I could just write about what I wanted to write about without having to pass a test or look super clever.

That, for me, is a very important test of a young writer's commitment because most of them are going to have to continue doing that when they've finished the program.

When I wrote 'Kidulthood,' I didn't even know there was going to be a 'Kidulthood.' I just wanted to test myself to see if I could write a script.

I think I am less self-assured when I write English than I would be if I were writing in my first language. I have to test each sentence over and over to be sure that it's right, that I haven't introduced some element that isn't English.

The most important lesson my parents taught me is that writing is a job, one that requires discipline and commitment. Most of the time it's a fun job, a wonderful job, but sometimes it isn't, and those are the days that test you.

I don't have to listen to the Gospel on Sunday to know the stories of the New Testament. They inform so much of what I write that they're practically like a news scrim that goes through my brain 24/7.

I'm still an old-school reporter at heart. Writing fiction satisfies my journalistic need to hear and relay the testimony of everyday people at the center of events.

One problem was that my direct testimony was in writing, so a lot of people didn't get to see it. I hope they see it, because I think it built a very strong case.

Common Core reminds us what testing can do right. Modeled on standards of the world's education superpowers, questions demand critical thinking and creativity. Students are asked to write at length, show their work, and explain their reasoning.

When I get back from a mid-morning stroll, I'll do some writing then I'll typically spend the day testing new recipes.

The best bit about having a collaborator is plot. Plot is quite hard to get right. It is a testing intellectual exercise that feels quite different to being in the flow of voice or characterisation. I like having someone to construct a plot with.

I find in my own writing that only fiction - and rarely, a poem - fully tests me to the kind of limits of what I know and what I feel.

I can well imagine that certain writers, even writers that we'd consider today very great writers, may not necessarily have tested highly on IQ just because of their numerical skills, or maybe they may not be very good at memory, and are not particularly good at these kinds of tests.

I often tell students that we should aspire to be amanuenses to the land: to let the land speak (in all its voices, human and otherwise), then take dictation, and try to get some of the words right. "How do you know when you get the words right?" they ask. "You know," I reply. When we do, the leaves not only speak; they positively sing.

Among the American contemporaries I read with most enjoyment are several North Carolinians. I think the best poetry being written these days is being written by Southerners.

The decision to write in prose instead of poetry is made more by the readers than by writers. Almost no one is interested in reading narrative in verse.

Teaching writing over the years intrudes on your own writing in important ways, taking away some of the excitement of poetry.

Some people swear by writing courses, but whether it really helps American poetry, I have doubts.

I think that it's more likely that in my 60s and 70s I will be writing poetry rather than fiction.

I don't think the creative writing industry has helped American poetry.

Writers Are Insane. For months we are lone wolves locked in our caves. Then overnight we become publicity hounds. It's a schizophrenic business.

It takes more energy to find the words to describe poems than almost anything I can think of, except of course for trying to find the damn words to write one.

Walls, no less than writing, define civilization. They are monuments of resistance against time, like writing itself. . .