Quotes About Authorship

Does the book industry suffer from the classical "expert problem" with the buildup of rules of thumb that do not have empirical validity? More than half a million readers later I am discovering that books are not written for book editors.

So I use procrastination as a message from my inner self and my deep evolutionary past to resist interventionism in my writing.

Indeed, Georges Simenon, one of the most prolific writers of the twentieth century, only wrote sixty days a year, with three hundred days spent "doing nothing." He published more than two hundred novels.

the statement will be more revealing of the author than the information intended by him.

Il mio mestiere è scrivere delle storie, cose inventate o cose che ricordo della mia vita ma comunque storie, cose dove non c'entra la cultura ma soltanto la memoria e la fantasia. Questo è il mio mestiere, e io lo farò fino alla morte

Hey baby, when I write, I'm the hero of my shit.

I've found out why men sign their names to their works- not that they created them but more than the others did not.

A writer is not a writer because he has written some books. A writer is not a writer because he teaches literature. A writer is only a writer if he can write now, tonight, this minute.

The writer has no responsibility other than to jack off in bed alone and write a good page.

Maybe I'll write a novel, I thought. And then I did.

I guess what I meant is that you are better off doing nothing than doing something badly. But the problem is that bad writers tend to have the self-confidence, while the good ones tend to have self-doubt. [1989 interview in the literary journal "Arete". In response to the question Your poem 'friendly advice to a lot of young men' says that one is better off living in a barrel than he is writing poetry. Would you give this same advice today?]

Only assholes talk about writing

It is uphill work writing books

The writer cannot expect to be excused from the task of re-education and re-generation that must be done. In fact, he should march right in front.

Equiano, one of the luckiest among them, acquired an education, freed himself, and wrote a book in 1789: The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African. Written by Himself. He preceded his European slave name by his original Igbo name and affirmed his African identity, waving it like a banner in the wind.

That is how one of the greatest astronomical discoveries of the twentieth century unfolded. A key theory explaining how the universe works was confirmed thanks to amateurs in New Zealand and Australia, a former amateur trying to turn professional in Chile, and professional physicists in the United States and Japan. When a scientific paper finally announced the discovery to the world, all of them shared authorship.

There's a book in you that only you can write.

Ray Bradbury said it best: "Your intuition knows what it wants to write, so get out of the way.

In the context of novel writing, this means you should lower the bar from "best-seller" to "would not make someone vomit." Exuberant imperfection encourages you to write uncritically, to experiment, to break your time-honored rules of writing just to see what happens. In a first draft, nothing is permanent, and everything is fixable. So stay loose and flexible, and keep your expectations very, very low.

'Misery' left a lasting mark on me. When I die, it will be 'Kathy 'Misery' Bates Is Dead.'

Sure, I've often been misrepresented - anyone frequently quoted has this experience.

I can't write; I don't think I'm even particularly good at telling a writer what's good or what's missing. So, actually having someone who can do that is a godsend.

I never know what I'm going to write next, and when I think I do I usually turn out to be mistaken.

I could not write without my dog, Rhoda, a Lab-chow mix.