Quotes About Writing

PAGE DEDICATION CHAPTER ONE CHAPTER TWO CHAPTER THREE CHAPTER FOUR CHAPTER FIVE

You can't read my shorthand because I wrote in Polish.

If you really want me to be safe, maybe it's time." "I'd just feel safer if you'd start sleeping in a coffin." Just then my door creaked open. Billy's expression turned to surprise. "Get out!" I said, hopping off the bed. "Uh...we are making up lyrics to a song." But that didn't keep Billy out. Instead he was totally interested. "You're writing a song? That's so cool. I want to hear it." "It goes, 'Safer in a coffin, and if your brother doesn't leave, he'll be in one too.

What are your drawn to?" ... "Language, Words, No, not teaching. Perhaps one day I'll write something.

That's what I love about writing. Once you get the words down on paper, in print, they start to make sense. It's like you don't know what you think until it dribbles from your brain down your arm and into your hand and out through your fingers and shows up on the computer screen, and you read it and realize: That's really true; I believe that.

Write it down, Gio. After dinner go to your room and write down what happened and how you feel about it. Your writing is good--it really is. Just don't run away from the feelings.

The young man seated himself at a writing desk, selected a reed pen, fixed its point with a small knife, dipped it in a jar of ink, and wrote on a scrap of paper. There was something arcane, hieratic, about his manner. Scriptorium … Suddenly Ellery realized what it was: with his own eyes, in the century of rocket experimentation and quantum physics, he was actually beholding a scribe at work in the manner of the ancients. In silence he picked up the piece of paper. Sanquetum.

It's usually a big kind of vent of frustration or anger or sadness that puts me in the right frame of mind to write. It's such a cliche to say that artists write when they're down, but it's true for me. It's a relief to get out what's eating away at my heart or my soul or my head.

I just write whenever I can.

My most important piece of advice to all you would-be writers: When you write, try to leave out all the parts readers skip.

Write the book the way it should be written, then give it to somebody to put in the commas and shit.

I'm very much aware in the writing of dialogue, or even in the narrative too, of a rhythm. There has to be a rhythm with it … Interviewers have said, you like jazz, don't you? Because we can hear it in your writing. And I thought that was a compliment.

I started out of course with Hemingway when I learned how to write. Until I realized Hemingway doesn't have a sense of humor. He never has anything funny in his stories.

It's my attempt to remain invisible, not distract the reader from the story with obvious writing.

Avoid Prologues. They can be annoying, especially a prologue following an introduction that comes after a foreword.

I don't think writers compete, I think they're all doing separate things in their own style.

she knew that once she had the plot, she could write the book fairly quickly.

I can't imagine what you write about," North said. "Certainly not about my personal life. I attempted a diary once, and had to fill it with lies in order to keep myself interested

Pero volvamos al aire y la luz de la primavera, que deberían ser los únicos protagonistas. Se trataba de una luz incomprensible. Siendo así que la adolescencia consiste en ese aire que no es posible explicarse. Podría escribirse en esa luz (ya que no es posible escribir sobre esa luz), conseguir que la suave carne de pomelo de esa luz quedase inscrita, en cierto modo «pensada». Aún está por ver si se puede, si yo puedo.

Cuando escribes te fugas, entras en trance: estás en la Zona. Te gustaría, si pudieses, pedir perdón por esos cuentos. Por faltar a tu obligación de ser un ciudadano de provecho. En tu entorno, escribir es una pérdida de tiempo: lo urgente es ganarse la vida. El pánico de cualquier familia ante la perspectiva de un hijo descarriado por la tarea inútil de una vida irregular (cierto), socavada por ingresos irregulares (más cierto aún). Lo prudente es no escribir.

I mean, in some cases with libel laws, you know, they can write things about people who have no course of action, because they can't afford to take legal action against them.

La escritura siempre ha de ser valiente, aunque a costa de eso una se muestre desnuda.

I write for the kid in me. . . . Often when I'm working on a story, I'll find myself laughing at something my characters have done, or even being surprised at where they've taken the story. It's as if they have a life all their own. What I do is create them and then let them go on to entertain me. . . .