Quotes About Writing

Usually, when people get to the end of a chapter, they close the book and go to sleep. I deliberately write a book so when the reader gets to the end of the chapter, he or she must turn one more page.

Put down everything that comes into your head and then you're a writer. But an author is one who can judge his own stuff's worth, without pity, and destroy most of it.

Sit down, and put down everything that comes into your head and then you're a writer. But an author is one who can judge his own stuff's worth, without pity, and destroy most of it.

Every story I write starts with a dilemma or a theme. Once I am convinced that this is the issue that is perturbing my thoughts, I start to look for characters capable of representing it.

I sit in my room at my desk, looking out the window to the yard and waiting for a plot to come to me, to rise slowly in my mind.

The purgatory I'd let myself in for always came between me and the pages; there was no escape for me now.

The creative writer acts no differently from the child at play: he creates a fantasy world, which he takes very seriously; that is to say, he invests large amounts of emotion in it, while marking it off sharply from reality.

If reading really does increase empathy, as we are constantly being told that it does, it appears that writing takes some away.

Because it's all about the rhythm, you said. Good sentences start with a beat.

I always tell my writing students that every good piece of writing begins with both a mystery and a love story. And that every single sentence must be a poem. And that economy is the key to all good writing. And that every character has to have a secret.

Whole scenes of your life slip away forever if you don't put them down in ink.

When you write, everything is possible, even the very opposite of what you are.

Writing is a luxury or, with luck, a rainbow of colors. It is my lifesaver when the water of the river or the sea tries to drag me under. When you want to die you fall in love with yourself, you look for something touching that will save you.

What matters is what we write: that is what we are, not some puppet made up by those who talk and enclose us in a prison so different from our dreams.

Lo más terrible es sentir en nuestra vida, en la que todo parece repetirse, la incapacidad de volver a escribir un cuento que hemos perdido.

I write in order to forget scorn, in order not to forget, in order not to hate, from hate, from love, from memory, and so as not to die.

He had done it as if in preparation for his work as a creative writer: he had mastered the technical aspect of writing, strengthening his verbal muscle, so that when he started to use his imagination, he knew exactly how to express himself.

It was the best of Times New Roman, it was the worst of Times New Roman.)

The learned are not agreed as to the time when the Gospel of John was written some dating it as early as the year 68, others as late as the year 98 but it is generally conceded to have been written after all the others.

The haunted type­writer clacked busily away to my left, operated by a journalist who was murdered several years ago, but hadn't let a little thing like being dead interfere with his work.

Mi pisci imamo neku tajnu koja nas održava u životu i daje nam nadu, mada znamo da to što pišemo nikad ne?emo mo?i da objavimo. Isak Babelj radi na ne?emu tajnom, Miša Bulgakov piše roman o ?avolu u Moskvi. Ali niko ih nikad ne?e ?itati. Niko ni mene ne?e ?itati.

Royal Young's writing is that rare blend of irony and beauty.

El objetivo de escribir no es ser publicado, eso es algo hermoso, pero el objetivo es la verdad, la autenticidad.

Mais il resterait toujours ceci, qui m'empêcherait d'écrire ma vie, et qui est peut-être la véritable raison de mes échecs, c'est que si je disais certaines choses, si je racontais toute la vérité, qui n'est pas toujours belle, certains imputeraient mes criminalités à tous ceux qui m'aident à porter ma peau. Mais si ce n'est pas pour tout dire, à quoi sert de parler ?