WRITING QUOTES XXXI

quotations about writing

I want to be the apostle of self destruction. I want my book to affect man's reason, his emotions, his nerves, his whole animal nature. I should like my book to make people turn pale with horror as they read it, to affect them like a drug, like a terrifying dream, to drive them mad, to make them curse and hate me but still to read me.

LEONID ANDREYEV

diary, August 1, 1891

Tags: Leonid Andreyev


First forget inspiration. Habit is more dependable. Habit will sustain you whether you're inspired or not. Habit will help you finish and polish your stories. Inspiration won't. Habit is persistence in practice.

OCTAVIA E. BUTLER

"Furor Scribendi", Bloodchild and Other Stories


A day in which I don't write leaves a taste of ashes.

SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR

attributed, Writers on Writing

Tags: Simone de Beauvoir


A writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.

THOMAS MANN

Essays of Three Decades


In the past, the virtue of women's writing often lay in its divine spontaneity ... But it was also, and much more often, chattering and garrulous ... In future, granted time and books and a little space in the house for herself, literature will become for women, as for men, an art to be studied. Women's gift will be trained and strengthened. The novel will cease to be the dumping-ground for the personal emotions. It will become, more than at present, a work of art like any other, and its resources and its limitations will be explored.

VIRGINIA WOOLF

"Women and Fiction", Granite and Rainbow


The pen is mightier than the sword.

EDWARD BULWER LYTTON

Richelieu

Tags: Edward Bulwer Lytton


It's tremendously hard work. Yes, I love arranging the words and having them fall on the ear the right way and you know you're not quite there and you're redoing it and redoing it and there's a wonderful thrill to it. But it is hard.

ELIZABETH STROUT

Newsweek, July 13, 2009

Tags: Elizabeth Strout


I think writing for me has always been a matter of fear. Writing is fear and not writing is fear. I am afraid of writing and then I'm afraid of not writing.

FRAN LEBOWITZ

"In Conversation: Fran Lebowitz with Phong Bui", The Brooklyn Rail, March 4, 2014

Tags: Fran Lebowitz


The humorous story is told gravely; the teller does his best to conceal the fact that he even dimly suspects that there is anything funny about it.

MARK TWAIN

"How to Tell a Story"

Tags: Mark Twain


I think it's bad to talk about one's present work, for it spoils something at the root of the creative act. It discharges the tension.

NORMAN MAILER

attributed, The Writer's Quotation Book


Why write it? I thought it would earn me money.

ROBERT REED

interview, Fantasy & Science Fiction, December 18, 2012


I truly believe that writing is a continuum--so the different genres and forms are simply stops along the same continuum. Different ideas that need to be expressed sometimes require different forms for the ideas to float better.

CHRIS ABANI

interview, UTNE Reader, June 2010

Tags: Chris Abani


Rejection has value. It teaches us when our work or our skillset is not good enough and must be made better. This is a powerful revelation, like the burning UFO wheel seen by the prophet Ezekiel, or like the McRib sandwich shaped like the Virgin Mary seen by the prophet Steve Jenkins. Rejection refines us. Those who fall prey to its enervating soul-sucking tentacles are doomed. Those who persist past it are survivors. Best ask yourself the question: what kind of writer are you? The kind who survives? Or the kind who gets asphyxiated by the tentacles of woe?

CHUCK WENDIG

"25 Things Writers Should Know About Rejection", Terrible Minds


Sometimes I pick up a book and I say: Well, so you've written it first, have you? Good for you. O.K., then I won't have to write it.

DORIS LESSING

The Golden Notebook

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You can only learn to be a better writer by actually writing. I don't know much about creative writing programs. But they're not telling the truth if they don't teach, one, that writing is hard work and, two, that you have to give up a great deal of life, your personal life, to be a writer.

DORIS LESSING

The New York Times, April 22, 1984


Go to any lengths to avoid preachiness! If you have to choose between the message and the story, always choose the story.

ELIZABETH ZELVIN

interview, The Fix

Tags: Elizabeth Zelvin


You know, many writers really don't like to write. I think this the chief complaint of so many. They hate to write; they do it under the compulsion that makes any artist the victim he is, but they loathe the process of sitting down trying to turn thoughts into reasonable sentences.

HARPER LEE

interview with Roy Newquist, Counterpoints, 1964

Tags: Harper Lee


I decided very early that I wanted to write. But I didn't think of it as a career. I didn't even think of it as a profession.... It was the most exciting thing, the most powerful thing, the most wonderful thing to do with my life. And I didn't question if I should -- I just kept sharpening the pencils!

MARY OLIVER

The Christian Science Monitor, December 9, 1992

Tags: Mary Oliver


The good writers touch life often. The mediocre ones run a quick hand over her. The bad ones rape her and leave her for the flies.

RAY BRADBURY

Fahrenheit 451


A novel is balanced between a few true impressions and the multitude of false ones that make up most of what we call life.

SAUL BELLOW

Nobel lecture, December 12, 1976