Quotes About Writing

Jag har en känsla av att lidandet inte kommer att upphöra förrän det finns i en bok... först då kommer det att vara slut. Först då kommer det att vara utplånat. Jag upptäcker det med den här historien som jag har med er: att skriva, det är antagligen, det också, att utplåna. Ersätta.

También para los recuerdos es demasiado tarde. Ahora ya no les quiero. No sé si los quise. Los abandoné. Ya no guardo en mi mente el perfume de su piel ni en mis ojos el color de sus ojos. Ya no me acuerdo de la voz, salvo a veces la de la dulzura con la fatiga de la noche. Ya no oigo la risa, ni la risa ni los gritos. Se acabó, ya no lo recuerdo. [...] se ha convertido en escritura corriente.

That people kill themselves because of my books won't stop me from writing. If people turned into reactionaries, political assholes after reading me, yes, that would stop me from writing, but not if they killed themselves.

C'est curieux, un écrivain. C'est une contradiction et aussi un non-sens. Écrire, c'est aussi ne pas parler. C'est se taire. C'est hurler sans bruit.

Écrire, c'est hurler sans bruit.

There is also some of that in the function of writing, and perhaps first and foremost it means telling oneself every day that one mustn't kill oneself, so long as every day one could kill oneself. That

N?u ng??i ta bi?t gì Ä'ó v? Ä'i?u mình s? vi?t, trÆ°á»›c khi làm Ä'i?u Ä'ó, trÆ°á»›c khi vi?t, ng??i ta s? không bao gi? vi?t. Ch?ng c?n.

Vi?t v?n là tìm cách bi?t trÆ°á»›c ???c mình s? vi?t gì n?u mình vi?t - ng??i ta ch? bi?t Ä'i?u này sau Ä'ó - còn trÆ°á»›c Ä'ó, là câu h?i hóc búa nh?t mà ng??i ta có th? ??t ra cho mình. NhÆ°ng cÅ©ng là câu h?i lá»›n nh?t.

V?n chÆ°Æ¡ng, nó ??n nhÆ° cÆ¡n gió, nó tr?n tr?i, nó là má»±c vi?t, nó là Ä'i?u ???c vi?t ra, và nó trôi qua nhÆ° không có b?t k? Ä'i?u gì khác trôi qua trong ??i, không gì hÆ¡n, ngoài nó, cuá»™c s?ng.

Ná»—i cô Ä'Æ¡n c?a v?n chÆ°Æ¡ng là ná»—i cô Ä'Æ¡n mà n?u không có nó s? không có tác ph?m, ho?c tác ph?m s? ph?i nh? t?ng gi?t máu ?? tìm xem ph?i vi?t thêm gì. M?t máu, nó không còn ???c tác gi? công nh?n n?a.

emotions of that order, very subtle, very profound, very carnal, and essential, and completely unpredictable, can hatch entire lives in a body. that's what writing is. it's the pace of the written word passing through your body.

De nacht. Schrijven is de nacht.

Nunca escrevi, e pensei que escrevia, nunca amei, e pensei que amava, nunca fiz nada a não ser esperar diante da porta fechada.

Escribiré libros. Eso es lo que vislumbro más allá del instante, en el gran desierto bajo cuyos trazos se me aparece la amplitud de mi vida.

Bücher liegen in der Luft. Der Schriftsteller ist nur die Brücke zwischen dem Stoff und der Niederschrift.

Men cannot stand a woman who writes. That's a cruel thing for men. It's hard for all of them.

One does not find solitude, one creates it. Solitude is created alone. I have created it. Because I decided that here was where I should be alone, that I would be alone to write books. It happened this way. I was alone in this house. I shut myself in—of course, I was afraid. And then I began to love it.

aceptó un largo ensayo mío para la revista Les Lettres françaises que él dirigía en Buenos Aires con el apoyo de aquella admirable protectora de las letras que se llamó Victoria Ocampo.

In queste carte l'arabesco del suo narrare non è formale ma somiglia ad una ricerca della penna intorno ad un punto piagato: come se egli cercasse continuamente di respingere qualche cosa di forza pari alla repugnanza che gli ispira.

Sometimes in composition class, when I have been confronted by someone who simply cannot get the first word written on paper, I give the following advice: Say your essay into a tape recorder and then write it down.

Any writer overwhelmingly honest about pleasing himself is almost sure to please others.

I am governed by the pull of the sentence as the pull of fabric is governed by gravity.

We have become desensitized, in ways discussed earlier, to the electrifying power of the well-chosen word. But sometimes it breaks through like a ray of light through a cloud bank. We all know the experience of reading or perhaps writing a sentence that evokes with absolute laser-like precision a particular feeling, atmosphere, action, or thought which, being named, seems to take on brand-new life.

Writing a book is an adventure: it begins as an amusement, then it becomes a mistress, then a master, and finally a tyrant." — Sir Winston Churchill