Quotes About Writing

I write well-fleshed out characters, and inevitably, more ideas spring from my subconscious. They all have a little bit of me in them. It's very hard to figure out in advance how a story will unfold, but after having written so many novels, I feel more comfortable letting the ideas come up from somewhere in my own subconscious. Writing is much easier now because that sense of panic I used to experience doesn't set in as I begin a new book.

My series characters are like family to me. They actually talk to me, telling me what to write and what not to write. And when they talk, I always listen

when it happened, but now it appeared that she'd been even younger. The faded writing would be almost indecipherable even if it had been in English. It was going to take more than her knowledge of Yiddish to make out the text. The envelope had arrived in

I love the ability to let my mind explore whatever it wants. When you write it down, it has to be informed and make sense. But if you have an imagination, you can go everywhere. I love that--the inception--having a germ of an idea and building upon it. You can do whatever you want with it. Many writers would say you can play God.

Mary Fisher lives in a High Tower, on the edge of the sea: she writes a great deal about the nature of love. She tells lies.

Lo que quiero deciros con esto, Señorías, es que, enloquecido por la lectura, no dudará el hombre en dar el salto y convertirse de simple lector en pretencioso escritor.

Desde que un ser humano aprendió a escribir y divulgar sus palabras, nunca faltó otro que quisiera borrarlas, destruirlas, hacerlas desaparecer de la faz de la Tierra.

Escribo porque, si no, me pudro por dentro.

The thing is, Sara, writing's scary. You have to be prepared to go deep......And when your brain's shouting, 'No, no, no, I'm not going to think that thought; it's too dirty, it's too scary, it's too painful,' that's when you must make yourself think it and make yourself write it.

Me parece que cada vez escribo mejor lo que me pasa. Lástima que cada vez me vaya peor.

Claro que diré que escribir es una necesidad fatal: si es fatal, tantas veces, el placer del alcohol o de cualquier alcaloide, siendo elementos venidos del exterior, ¿Cómo no va a ser fatal el placer de la vanidad cuya materia prima la extraemos de nuestras entrañas?

Creo que mi especialidad está en escribir lo que no sé, pues no creo que solamente se debe escribir lo que se sabe. Y desconfío de los que en estas cuestiones pretenden saber mucho, claro y seguro.

Otras veces pienso que si me ha dado por escribir los recuerdos, es porque alguien que está en mí y que sabe más que yo, quiere que escriba los recuerdos porque pronto me iré a morir de no sé qué enfermedad.

And just what is the most precious thing in life that riches can supply? Easy. For me, it's Time. Time. Time to read and write poetry if I want to. Or to write a book if it takes my fancy. Time to travel on the slightest whim, to walk in the woods, to think, to commission art, to read, to drink, to hang out with friends and loved ones … to do just about anything really, as long as it does not involve day after grinding day making money in an office or a factory for somebody else.

Filosoof zijn is ni schrijve, mor is leve!

Hay libros que van creciendo dentro de uno a lo largo de los años en espera de la ocasión oportuna de ser escritos.

Que es exactamente lo que mi madre no desea: que su sufrimiento y el de sus hijos le sirva de material a un escritor para que componga su libro o al director de cine para que ruede su película, y los aplaudan después, y ganen premios, mientras nosotros seguimos con nuestra tragedia a cuestas.

What we were really writing about was the beginning of globalization

Alfonso Reyes said that one published what he had written in order to avoid spending his life correcting it: one publishes a book in order to leave it behind, one publishes a book in order to forget it.

I believe that a writer should never attempt a contemporary theme or a very precise topography. Otherwise people are immediately going to find mistakes. Or if they don't find them, they're going to look for them, and if they look for them, they'll find them. That's why I prefer to have my stories take place in somewhat indeterminate places and many years ago.

La trama de mi vida es la de un libro absurdo en el que lo que debería ir primero va luego. Es que este libro mío yo no lo escribí, ya estaba escrito: simplemente lo he ido cumpliendo página por página sin decidir. Sueño con escribir la última por lo menos, de un tiro, por mano propia, pero los sueños sueños son y a lo mejor ni eso

La literatura es así, e igual la vida: uno no es, ni vive, ni escribe lo que quiere, sino lo que puede.

Adesso, ricordandolo, scrivo queste righe prima che l'età mi intenerisca troppo il cuore e io non sia più capace di raccontarlo. Chi troppo ama, tace;

His writing processes involve a psychological scorching, as self-reflection passes through the 'slow fire of consciousness': a hellish toasting of thoughts in the forge of the mind.