Top On Writing Quotes

Only amateurs say that they write for their own amusement. Writing is not an amusing occupation. It is a combination of ditch-digging, mountain-climbing, treadmill and childbirth. Writing may be inter...

Write what should not be forgotten.

Never put off writing until you are better at it.

Writers don't suffer from insanity, they depend upon it!

One of the few things I know about writing is this:spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or for another book; gi...

I would write:The soft melting hunk of butter trickled in gold down the stringy grooves of the split yam.Or:The child's clumsy fingers fumbled in sleep, feeling vainly for the wish of its dream.The ol...

When someone is mean to me, I just make them a victim in my next book.

A successful book is not made of what is in it, but what is left out of it.

Only a mediocre person is always at his best.

Give me just enough information so that I can lie convincingly.

I write fiction. It may have mystery, it may have horror, it may have fantasy, it may have love, but like life, it's all the same genre.

There are books full of great writing that don't have very good stories. Read sometimes for the story... don't be like the book-snobs who won't do that. Read sometimes for the words--the language. Don...

I write because I am a writer, not because I want to get anything out of it.

Fiction should be in its way subversive. I don't think books should be neat or gentle or genteel or comforting. I think they should be raw. They should be written as perfectly as possible, but what th...

For me and most of the other writers I know, writing is not rapturous. In fact, the only way I can get anything written at all is to write really, really shitty first drafts.

I'm not much of a believer in the so-called character study; I think that in the end, the story should always be the boss.

Any writer who puts his words and thoughts out into the public is going to be criticized.

For the next fortnight Anne writhed or reveled, according to the mood, in her literary pursuits. Now she would be jubilant over a brilliant idea, now despairing because some contrary character would n...

I kept always two books in my pocket, one to read, one to write in.

I am simply of the opinion that you cannot be taught to write. You have to spend a lifetime in love with words.