The writer's only responsibility is to his art. He will be completely ruthless if he is a good one. He has a dream. It anguishes him so much he must get rid of it. He has no peace until then. Everythi...
Throw up into your typewriter every morning. Clean up every noon.
I am simply of the opinion that you cannot be taught to write. You have to spend a lifetime in love with words.
I kept always two books in my pocket, one to read, one to write in.
Be yourself. Above all, let who you are, what you are, what you believe, shine through every sentence you write, every piece you finish.
I had come to the conclusion - based on experience - that the only real way of learning to write a novel was probably to write a novel.
Write without pay until somebody offers to pay.
People without hope not only don't write novels, but what is more to the point, they don't read them.
Authors, he thought. Even the sane ones are nuts.
Writing is about truth, whether it be fiction or a school essay. Don't give in and 'fake it till you make it.' Criticize what upsets you.
Easy reading is damn hard writing.
V.S. Pritchett's definition of a short story is 'something glimpsed from the corner of the eye, in passing.' Notice the 'glimpse' part of this. First the glimpse. Then the glimpse gives life, turned i...
I don't think anybody can teach anybody anything. I think that you learn it, but the young writer that is as I say demon-driven and wants to learn and has got to write, he don't know why, he will lear...
I have stolen ideas from every book I have ever read.
In sum, do not insult me with the beheadings, finger choppings or the lung-deflations you plan for my works. I need my head to shake or nod, my hand to wave or make into a fist, my lungs to shout or w...
I suggest to my students that they write under a pseudonym for a week. That allows young men to write as women, and women as men. It allows them a lot of freedom they don't have ordinarily.
You can fix anything but a blank page.
If you are a writer you locate yourself behind a wall of silence and no matter what you are doing, driving a car or walking or doing housework you can still be writing, because you have that space.
I think the best stories always end up being about the people rather than the event, which is to say character-driven.
Good writers define reality; bad ones merely restate it. A good writer turns fact into truth; a bad writer will, more often than not, accomplish the opposite.