Quotes About Writing

I found that life intruding on writing was, in fact, life. And that, tempting as it may be for a writer who is a parent, one must not think of life as an intrusion. At the end of the day, writing has very little to do with writing, and much to do with life. And life, by definition, is not an intrusion.

Our job as a writer is to represent the world and to bear witness to it.

You never have to change anything you get up in the middle of the night to write.

His mind took one of its odd jumps. He opened a clean page in his grimy notebook, and in the twig-divided shade of a wild cherry, infested with tent caterpillars, he began to make notes for a poem.

I think you ought to write, in bed, and make use of your unhappiness. I do it. Many do. One should cook and eat one's misery. Chain it like a dog. Harness like Niagara Falls to generate light and supply voltage for electric chairs.

John Hawkes is an extraordinary writer. I have always admired his books. They should he more widely read.

It means that writers are supposed to make you laugh and cry. That's what mankind is looking for.

I am deeply moved when I write. I get turned on by it. I've never used any drugs for stimulation. I don't use words loosely. When I'm working and the right word comes, there is an answering resonance within me. There is also a hardness of intention that goes with it. There is no idleness in it.

But then why shouldn't he write the dead? He lived with them as much as with the living - perhaps more; and besides, his letters to the living were increasingly mental, and anyway, to the Unconscious, what was death? Dreams did not recognize it.

One of the paradoxes of writing is that when you write non-fiction everyone tries to prove that it's wrong, and when you publish fiction, everyone tries to see the truth in it.

Recapping my skill set: I have poor art skills, mediocre business skills, good but not great writing talent, and an early knowledge of the Internet. And I have a good but not great sense of humor. I'm like one big mediocre soup. None of my skills are world-class, but when my mediocre skills are combined, they become a powerful market force.

The process of concentrating on the goal every day greatly increases the likelihood of noticing an opportunity in the environment. The coincidence will create the illusion that writing down the goal causes the environment to produce opportunities. But in reality the only thing that changes is the person's ability to notice the opportunities.

As it turns out, business writing is all about getting to the point and leaving out all of the noise. You think you already do that in your writing, but you probably don't. Consider

Writing takes place in an open playing field with limitless possibilities, most of them terrible.

good writing inspires me to write and bad writing provokes me to write.

Cure for writer's block: blow something up(in the story)

One of the most common questions writers are asked is Where do you get your ideas? But the sad truth is, we don't know. Ideas can come at any time and from any direction: in the shower, waiting for an elevator, or while bouncing across Wikipedia pages.

Being an author sucks, doesn't it? It's like telling a joke and nobody laughs for two years.

I like my first lines short and declarative. No complicated sentences. Of course, that's not really a Scott thing. It's pretty classic grab-the-reader technique.

Just remember, the things we write, they aren't always really us.

Blurbs don't work anymore!" was another. "You should make sure that the quotable lines of dialogue in your book never exceed a hundred and forty characters!" seemed at best debatable.

if only you could breathe onto the paper in all its fullness and warmth what is so alive in you, so that it would mirror your soul

It is hard to write, not, as might be expected, for reasons of metre or scholarship or elaborate symbolism, but because the actual writing depends almost entirely on the chance, the mood, the energy, of the moment.

I wrote the book almost unconsciously, like a somnambulist, and was amazed when I realized what I had done.