Quotes About Craft

Write with the door closed, rewrite with the door open.

If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There's no way around these two things that I'm aware of, no shortcut.

Writing is magic, as much the water of life as any other creative art. The water is free. So drink. Drink and be filled up.

When you write you tell yourself a story. When you rewrite you take out everything that is NOT the story.

Can I be blunt on this subject? If you don't have time to read, you don't have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.

Write with the door closed, rewrite with the door open. Your stuff starts out being just for you, in other words, but then it goes out. Once you know what the story is and get it right — as right as you can, anyway — it belongs to anyone who wants to read it. Or criticize it.

Grammar is...the pole you grab to get your thoughts up on their feet and walking.

This is a short book because most books about writing are filled with bullshit. Fiction writers, present company included, don't understand very much about what they do -- not why it works when it's good, not why it doesn't when it's bad. I figured the shorter the book, the less bullshit. Stephen King, On Writing

I can't lie and say there are no bad writers. Sorry, but there are lots of bad writers.

Easy reading is the product of hard writing

It's hard for me to believe that people who read very little - or not at all in some cases - should presume to write and expect people to like what they have written. Can I be blunt on this subject? If you don't have time to read, you don't have the time - or the tools - to write. Simple as that.

I want to suggest that to write to your best abilities, it behooves you to construct your own toolbox and then build up enough muscle so you can carry it with you. Then, instead of looking at a hard job and getting discouraged, you will perhaps seize the correct tool and get immediately to work.

I have a real problem with bloat -- I write like fat ladies diet.

writing couldn't really be taught, only learned.

Most books about writing are filled with bullshit. Fiction writers, present company included, don't understand very much about what they do—not why it works when it's good, not why it doesn't when it's bad.

I do pottery. I love it. It's very relaxing; it takes me to another planet.

I really love printmaking. It's like a mystery and you're trying to figure out how to rein it in.

Good writing is more about graft and craft than inspiration and aspiration.

Stories are spells and we have to careful how we cast them.

A central part of the torturer's craft is to make his job easier by stripping the victim of protective dignity.

I don't have technique because I never learnt any.

Most actors want to sink their teeth into amazing material.

To me acting and singing are worlds apart.

It's always been my hope, as an actor, to reveal only what is relevant about myself to the work.