Quotes About Writing

I'm a biographer; I can live with a little hyperbole.

When I write, I wear earplugs. I don't want to be self-conscious. I don't want to be thinking about the fact that I'm thinking about it. I just want to be in it. It's one element of hypnosis.

If the writing is good, then the writing is already funny. All you have to do is make this funny writing true to the very deepest of your heart, and the fact that you are capable of making this true will be hysterical.

My ideal is to write most of the day, then go running, find friends and socialise all evening; my mind recharges with human contact.

Any day in which I get writing done is ideal to me.

I write mostly for pleasure, and the reading should ideally be for pleasure, too.

I don't think or write from big ideals.

In my own writing, I tend to be very honest, and my goal is to identify something people think but are afraid to say. That's not the general cultural expectation of women.

A lot of cookbooks also have incredible food writing, even though I feel like a lot of cookbook authors don't necessarily identify with being writers.

I don't think I could write a book that had an ideological plan going in - I think that would be a terrible book.

I wrote a query letter to an editor - a friend of a friend. The editor called me an idiot, told me never to contact an editor directly, and then recommended three literary agents he had worked with before. Laurie Fox was one of them, and I've never looked back.

I thought, 'Nobody wants this book, and I'm an idiot for having worked on it so hard.' But to succeed in writing, you must be willing to look stupid for a long time. 'Pachinko' took so long because I got it wrong so many times.

Writing for TV entails saying every dumb idea that comes into your head to a room of people. And doing so with the confidence that it doesn't make you look like an idiot.

If we tried to write about politics, you'd realize that we're all a bunch of idiots.

I'm one of the idiots that negotiates after I write.

We can write idiots quite well.

I didn't ever imagine, except in the most idle, obviously wish-fulfillment, ego-gratification fantasies, that anything I wrote would ever win awards, let alone so many.

You're trying to write for your idols. It's strange.

I wanted to see if I could write a good book.

If I could write the perfect novella I would die happy.

I'm a huge David Lindsay-Abaire fan. If I could write, I would want to write like him.

If I could pick one reason why I want to be a writer, it would be connection. In all kinds of ways, I like to be individual and distinct; but when I write, I want to be writing about things that connect me to the people for whom I write.

If I could say anything to aspiring writers, it's to keep your own counsel, first and foremost.

If I could chat with anyone, it would be Claire Messud, because I think she could tell me how to get better as a writer as I age.