Dostoevsky was made by being sent to Siberia. Writers are forged in injustice as a sword is forged.
I'm not negative, pessimistic, angry, antisocial or schizophrenic. I'm a writer, and entitled to all that with pride.
I've never tried to be famous or become a bestseller, just rich and remembered. The rest is a bonus.
The best stories are the ones with the unexpected plot twists that no one would have guessed, even the writer.
You know the look: genius gone to pot, and ready to join the Communist Party
Every day in New York City is a test. Work hard and pass this test, you get a chocolate cookie. From a strange man on the subway. A man without pants.
Writers don't just create pages in a novel, but depth to worlds that become a safe haven for those who wish to escape the reality of their own.
I write because there is a madness within me to express my thoughts in words. I write because I feel passionately about certain feelings and there is this yearning within me to express these feelings...
Writing romantic fiction is the second chance that loved ones denied us.
The purpose of a writer is to keep civilisation from destroying itself.", September 14, 1958)
All the time I'm not writing I feel like a criminal. It's horrible to feel felonious every second of the day. It's much more relaxing to actually write.
In my view, the novelist has no right to express his opinions on the things of this world. In creating, he must imitate God: do his job and then shut up.
Be ruthless about protecting writing days, i.e., do not cave in to endless requests to have "essential" and "long overdue" meetings on those days. The funny thing is that, although writing has been my...
A good writer possesses not only his own spirit but also the spirit of his friends.
My father once admonished me to master the laws that govern fine writing until I could weave my words into worlds. If ever I accomplish that feat, I will sign my name to the tale.
I've met talespinners before, Jake, and they're all cut more or less from the same cloth. They tell tales because they're afraid of life.
I had once tried to write, had once reveled in feeling, had let m crude imagination roam, but the impulse to dream had been slowly beaten out of me by experience. Now it surged up again and i hungered...
When the style is fully formed if it has a sweet undersong we call it beautiful and the writer may do what he likes in words or syntax.
Just get it down on paper and then we'll see what to do with it.
Read over your compositions and when you meet a passage which you think is particularly fine strike it out.