Quotes About Authorship

Being an author is being in charge of your own personal insane asylum.

Being an author is having angels whisper in your ear — and devils, too.

To write requires an ego, a belief that what you say matters. Writing also requires an aching curiosity leading you to discover, uncover, what is gnawing at your bones.

In the end, the writer is not even allowed to live in his writing.

CATHERINE: I can't write from Diana's point of view. MARY: Of course you can. You're a writer; you can write anything. Just find your inner Diana. CATHERINE: I don't have an inner Diana. DIANA: Ha! You wish. Everyone has an inner Diana.

When you're a writer, the cure for whatever ails you is always writing.

In fact, whenever I read something as complicated as Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment and think about his having written it in longhand, I am not merely awed — the thought gives me a headache.

In every man's writings, the character of the writer must lie recorded.

I never know what I'm going to write next. If I'm still writing the book but I'm very near the end, and I begin to think of what I'd like to do next, then I'll know that what I'm writing is in hand. I'll think of an ending and it will be fine.

My rule has always been, write the next part of the book that you seem to know well. So I won't necessarily write chapter two after chapter one.

At the end of the day, what would be a Canadian sensibility? Is it Michael Ondaatje? Alice Munro? Is Margaret Atwood more Canadian than Neil Bissoondath?

You need a certain amount of nerve to be a writer.

The best ideas are those that really affect me emotionally - those are the ones you never forget. You think to yourself, 'I want to write that book', for years; those are the ideas that I love to work with, and 'The Bone Garden' was one of them.

I'd never take any credit for David's music - that's all his.

I have a new book coming out, so I do movie, book, movie, book, movie, book, every place we go.

Whenever I start a new book, I think, 'This is the most interesting subject of all time. It's sad, I'll never enjoy writing another book as much as I enjoy this one.' Every time, I'm convinced. And then I change my mind when I start the next book.

I spent six years after my first novel and five years after my second without getting into a new book.

I know what I'm going to write for the next three years. It's frustrating, because if I get a good new idea, I have to put it aside.

When you've written 10 books and have six on the New York Times best-seller list - and four have been No. 1 - I think you have a right to be a member of Congress.

For 30 years I wrote for newspapers and magazines, wrote books on the Dallas Cowboys' dynasties of the '70s and '90s, wrote about Michael Jordan in Chicago and Barry Bonds in the Bay Area, even wrote columns for ESPN.com from 2004 to 2006.

I always got appreciation for the columns I wrote for newspapers.

Kids are always writing me: 'I had a bad day too.' 'I got gum in my hair.' And the kids also write to me to pass on advice to Alexander. My favorite one of those being, 'The next time you have a bad day, blame your brothers.' I didn't expect this. It's certainly the most successful of my books.

Never, ever become a writer. It's a nightmare.

Three writers together would be a nightmare of obstreperous self-consciousness.