Quotes About Writing

After seven years of writing - and working many jobs to support my family - I finally got published.

Once I decided to write, to be published, I knew it would happen.

I'd never been published when I was young.

But the first published thing I did was a detective story, detective novel, and I did that on my own.

Exclusive will not be published in book format.

I read my books aloud before they were published.

I didn't have any concept of Trainspotting being published. It was a selfish act. I did it for myself.

Blogs are for anoraks who couldn't get published any other way.

I've written a lot of prose. I just haven't published it.

When I began to be published, people got the idea that I should 'teach writing,' which I have no idea how to do and don't really believe in.

My first book was published without any editorial advice. Nobody said, 'You might do this or that,' or 'Why don't we see more of this.' I merely took the book and published it.

I was directed because I knew I wanted to be a novelist, but I didn't have a very good job or a way of getting published. I found those years to be among the most difficult of my life.

Many aspects of the writing life have changed since I published my first book, in the 1960s. It is more corporate, more driven by profits and marketing, and generally less congenial - but my day is the same: get out of bed, procrastinate, sit down at my desk, try to write something.

Getting a book published made me feel a little bit sad. I felt driven by the need to write a book, rather than the need to write. I needed to figure out what was important to me as a writer.

I got the writing bug in the fourth grade when a poem of mine was published in the school newspaper. Music criticism came a little later, when I was in high school.

I think people are confusing the right to write with the right to be published.

If I hadn't been able to get my first book published, I am not sure what I would have done.

A whole bunch of agents and editors looked at my stories, and they all said, in effect, 'You're a pretty good writer and you should probably get these published; when you grow up and write a novel, get in touch.'

I certainly was performing before my writing was published, because I was performing when I was very young. And the thing is I'm very comfortable on stage, so a large portion of my act did come from ad-libs.

'Britain's Royal Families' became my first published book, in 1989, from The Bodley Head, and the rest of the story is - dare I say it? - history!

I don't reread my books after they're published, because it's agony.

I tend to write things and don't go the next step and try to get it published. I don't want to do book signings and stuff.

When I look back at my career as an author, I don't look at the first book that was ever published as to where my career began - I look to the first book that I ever wrote.

I wrote two plays before I was cast on 'The Neighbors.' They actually got published, which was cool.