From Martin Eden on submitting manuscripts: "There was no human editor at the other end, but a mere cunning arrangement of cogs that changed the manuscript from one envelope to another and stuck on th...
When you can't enter through the front door, kick in a window.
A novelist has to know enough about a subject to fool the passenger next to him on an airplane.
Writing is my life. Life is my hobby.
To write is to stand at the edge of a bottomless well, unafraid of falling in.
But, later, coming back and reading what I have produced, I am unable to detect the difference between what came easily and when I had to sit down and say, "Well, now it's writing time and now I'll wr...
Well-developed characters will ruin your writing plans every time. You may think you know where you're going with a story, but they have other ideas.
Always write as if you will never have the blessed chance to write again, so this has to be the best thing you've ever done. Do that, and it will be.
Writing is like a blind man building a stone house with a limited amount of space and time. Brick after brick, row after row, feeling his way round and round. Turning stones into walls, rooms and towe...
I see Sarah framed in the light of her doorway and it is like looking at a painting that emanate a mixture of wishes and truths about someone I loved - from a time I can already vividly remember. I wo...
The great advantage of being a writer is that you can spy on people. You're there, listening to every word, but part of you is observing. Everything is useful to a writer, you see - every scrap, even...
I don't think you can reach your potential as a writer unless you're a passionate reader, AND read passionately.
The artist committing himself to his calling has volunteered for hell, whether he knows it or not. He will be dining for the duration on a diet of isolation, rejection, self-doubt, despair, ridicule,...
Organizations for writers palliate the writer's loneliness, but I doubt if they improve his writing.... For he does his work alone and if he is a good enough writer he must face eternity, or the lack...
Whenever I have endured or accomplished some difficult task -- such as watching television, going out socially or sleeping -- I always look forward to rewarding myself with the small pleasure of getti...
Writing is like having sex. The people who never shut up about doing it are usually the ones who don't know what the hell they're doing.
The privilege is not writing a novel, it's to have someone read it. When you look at it that way, you realize the responsibility you have to put your very best on the page.
Hardly anybody ever writes anything nice about introverts. Extroverts rule. This is rather odd when you realise that about nineteen writers out of twenty are introverts. We are been taught to be asham...
Writing fiction is not a profession that leaves one well-disposed toward reading fiction. One starts out loving books and stories, and then one becomes jaded and increasingly hard to please. I read le...
The next best thing after finishing writing a chapter is starting a new one.
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