Quotes About Writing

How long has it been since you wrote a story where your real love or real hatred somehow got onto the paper? When was the last time you dared release a cherished prejudice so it slammed the page like a lightning bolt? What are the best things and the worst things in your life, and when are you going to get around to whispering or shouting them?

You fail, only if you stop writing.

Is there a Bible chapter, I wonder? Futilities, verse four, paragraph two?' 'There will be.' 'And will I write it?' 'I have faith in you, Father!' 'Reverend!' he cried. 'Reverend,' I said.

Write a short story every week. All fifty-two of them can't be horrible.

If you can't read and write you can't think. Your thoughts are dispersed if you don't know how to read and write. You've got to be able to look at your thoughts on paper and discover what a fool you were.

It is a wise writer who knows his own subconscious.

It's bad to get up early, stand at your typewriter and work, then find it's nothing and take a bottle to bed.

First and foremost, [Writing] reminds us that we are alive and that it is gift and a privilege, not a right. We must earn life once it has been awarded us. Life asks for rewards back because it has favored us with animation.

Occasionally I wonder why I can be so happy. The answer is that every day of my life I've worked only for myself and for the joy that comes from writing and creating. The image in my mirror is not optimistic, but the result of optimal behavior.

We theorize about what goes on in the brain, but it is mostly undiscovered country. A writer's work is to coax the stuff out and see how it plays. Surprise, as I have often said, is everything.

He must ask himself, "What do I really think of the world, what do I love, fear, hate?" and begin to pour this on paper.

So here, after fifty years, is Fahrenheit 451. I didn't know what I was doing, but I'm glad that it was done.

Fuego brillante Posfacio de Ray Bradbury, febrero de 1993

I have learned, on my journeys, that if I let a day go by without writing, I grow uneasy. Two days and I am in tremor. Three and I suspect lunacy. Four and I might as well be a hog, suffering the flux in a wallow.

Well, if you are a writer, or would hope to be one, similar lists, dredged out of the lopside of your brain, might well help you discover you, even as I flopped around and finally found me.

I fell into my typewriter with it and came up with a brand-new, absolutely original tale, which had been lurking under my skin since I first drew a skull and crossbones, aged six.

So I collected comics, fell in love with carnivals and World's Fairs and began to write. And what, you ask, does writing teach us? First and foremost, it reminds us that we are alive and that it is a gift and a privilege, not a right. We must earn life once it has been awarded us. Life asks for rewards back because it has favored us with animation.

What is the greatest reward a writer can have? Isn't it that day when someone rushes up to you, his face bursting with honesty, his eyes afire with admiration and cries, "That new story of yours was fine, really wonderful!" Then and only then is writing worthwhile. Quite

Be pragmatic, then. If you're not happy with the way your writing has gone, you might give my method a try. If you do, I think you might easily find a new definition for Work. And the word is LOVE. 1973

Y por primera vez comprendí que detrás de cada libro hay un hombre. Un hombre que tuvo que pensarlo. Un hombre que empleó mucho tiempo en llevarlo al papel.

Yo soy un escritor apasionado, no intelectual, lo que quiere decir que mis personajes tienen que adelantarse a mí para vivir la historia. Si mi intelecto los alcanza demasiado pronto, toda la aventura puede quedar empantanada en la duda y en innumerables juegos mentales.

I leave you now at the bottom of your own stair, at half after midnight, with a pad, a pen, and a list to be made. Conjure the nouns, alert the secret self, taste the darkness. Your own Thing stands waiting way up there in the attic shadows. If you speak softly, and write any old word that wants to jump out of your nerves onto the page... your Thing at the top of the stairs in your own private night... May well come down.

So I collected comics, fell in love with carnivals and World's Fairs and began to write. And what, you ask, does writing teach us? First and foremost, it reminds us that we are alive and that it is a gift and a privilege, not a right.

if you are writing without zest, without gusto, without love, without fun, you are only half a writer. It