Quotes About Writing

Interviewer: The other day, when we first talked, you said that you felt that, when you were writing, you were often following invisible patterns. Stone: I don't see them so much as hear them, and I know that a poem will happen and later I will look at it, and say: Wow, where did that come from? how did I do that? I didn't set out to do that, but the neural connections are so fast, the body, the self is so slow, (laughs) that you're kind of astonished. It's odd.

My writing is a combination of three elements. The first is travel: not travel like a tourist, but travel as exploration. The second is reading literature on the subject. The third is reflection.

[T]he author writes as a race-horse runs, for the sake of it. He feels like it, and kindles just because he enjoys burning.

I have no idea why I write. The old standards are: I like to express my feelings, stretch my imagination, earn money.

There are nineteen words in Yiddish that convey gradations of disparagement from a mild, fluttery helplessness to a state of downright, irreconcilable brutishness. All of them can be usefully employed to pinpoint the kind of individuals I write about.

Great writing is a submission to a creative force that seems to use the writer as an instrument. The writer finds that the words stream out, almost as if someone else were producing them. Writing becomes a process of discovery.

One habit I have not yet succeeded in getting rid of: the inveterate one of feeling that when at home I must sit at my desk for so long each day to write, not letters whether of business or of friendship, but printable stuff, even when there is no idea of publishing connected with it. If I have failed to do it, I feel morally hang-doggy and physically unclean.

He longed for it to be winter. A cold wind would blow, the sea would pound, and he would rise cheerful and fit from a delicious sleep beneath warm blankets. Then would come days in which he would write his great novel. The kettle would boil and hot coffee would froth in his cup. In the garden the citron would flower beneath a brilliant moon, its branches dripping fragrance. The starry sky would sweeten the soft silence and Hemdat would pour the dew of his soul into the sea-blue night.

Here in Manto's own words that he wanted to mark his grave with: "In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful Here lies Saadat Hasan Manto and with him lie buried all the secrets and mysteries of the art of short-story writing.... Under tons of earth he lies, still wondering who among the two is greater short-story writer: God or He.

Today we are called new writers. The coming tomorrow, considering us old, will lock us in closets, but that does not mean we have lived in vain.

Aliye, bana böyle ?eyler yazma... Sonra ben sana deli gibi a??k olurum.

Jednom sam se i ja odvažio pisati, pa ?ak i žvrljati kratke pjesme, ali sam od toga brzo odustao: strah od toga da ono što se nalazi u meni na bilo koji na?in izbije na površinu, ta besmislena i nepotrebna plašljivost sprje?avala je moje pisanje.

How is it possible to write one's autobiography in a world so fast-changing as this?

Good writing does not fail or succeed on the strength of its ability to persuade. Not the kind of writing that you'll find in this book, anyway. It succeeds or fails on the strength of its ability to engage you, to make you think, to give you a glimpse into someone else's head -- even if in the end you conclude someone else's head is not a place you'd really like to be. from intro to What The Dog Saw

Los escritores contemporáneos no se leen los unos a los otros, sino que se vigilan.

Algunas mañanas me despertaba y el dolor era tan enorme que quería terminar con todo, pero entonces pensaba: «No, Ted, hoy no te puedes suicidar. Estás a mitad de un libro estupendo».

Ich habe noch nie einen Schriftsteller kennengelernt, der nicht eitel und nicht egozentrisch gewesen wäre – es sei denn, es war ein besonders schlechter Autor.

Wer Kritik als Beruf ausübt, weiß genau, was für ihn unentwegt auf dem Spiel steht – sein Renommee und damit die Basis seiner Existenz als Schriftsteller. Er kann es sich deshalb nicht leisten, leichtfertig zu urteilen.

In reading and writing thou must learn first to follow instruction before thou canst give it. Much more is this true of life.

Neither can embellishments of language be found without arrangement and expression of thoughts, nor can thoughts be made to shine without the light of language.

Calamus fortior gladio.

Fieri autem potest ut recte quis sentiat et id, quod sentit, polite eloqui non possit; sed mandare quemquam litteris cogitationes suas, qui eas nec disponere nec illustrare possit nec delectatione aliqua adlicere lectorem, hominis est intemperanter abutentis et otio et litteris.

If your career doesn't work out, write a book about it.

Novel-writing is not so much a profession as a yoga, or way, an alternative to ordinary life-in-the-world. Its benefits are quasi-religious—a changed quality of mind and heart, satisfactions no non-novelist can understand—and its rigors generally bring no profit except to the spirit. For those who are authentically called to the profession, spiritual profits are enough.--John Gardner