There is a curious idea among unscientific men that in scientific writing there is a common plateau of perfectionism. Nothing could be more untrue. The reports of biologists are the measure, not of th...
The hardest thing about being a writer is convincing your wife that lying on the sofa is work.
The writer sat besides the weeping Gilgamesh, swam out of all the unsinkable ships sank. He was there, and he wasn't. Like a naturalist observing the tarn of life from an unseen bubble of neutrality.
Why do I do it to myself? Why don't I get an ordinary job?
All good writing is swimming under water and holding your breath.
Capture your reader, let him not depart, from dull beginnings that refuse to start
There is no literature and art without paranoia. Probably there would be even civilization. Paranoia is the world. It is the attempt to make sense of what has not.
A writer's life is never boring when you have imaginary friends to play with!
You have to dream intentionally. Most people dream a dream when they are asleep. But to be a writer, you have to dream while you are awake, intentionally.
In the novel All Flesh Is Grass, one of Cliff’s characters, Nancy, who was a writer herself, would say of that profession: It’s a thing you don’t talk about—not until you’re well along with it. There...
A writer's work is never done, unless he or she has no readers.
There's a difference between writing for a living and writing forlife. If you write for a living, you make enormous compromises....If you write for life, you'll work hard; you'll do what's honest,not...
You see, I believe that you cannot be taught to 'write.' You can be taught grammar and punctuation, but you cannot be taught to be a writer. That has to come from within.
Mi vida estuvo siempre perturbada por una maraña de trampas, gambetas e ilusiones para burlar los incontables señuelos que trataban de convertirme en cualquier cosa que no fuera escritor.
Images are not quite ideas, they are stiller than that, with less implication outside themselves. And they are not myth, they do not have the explanatory power; they are nearer to pure story. Nor are...
Predictions are uttered by prophets (free of charge); by clairvoyants (who usually charge a fee, and are therefore more honored in their day than prophets); and by futurologists (salaried). Prediction...
It is a wise writer who knows his own subconscious.
It's an important thing and a necessary thing as a writer to always be reaching outside of yourself. They say write what you know. But what you know is rarely enough. You need to know more. But you've...
Don't be a writer; it's a terrible way to live your life. There's nothing to be gained from it but poverty and obscurity and solitude. So if you have a taste for all those things, which means that you...
A writer's knowledge of himself, realistic and unromantic, is like a store of energy on which he must draw for a lifetime: one volt of it properly directed will bring a character to life.