quotations about writing
What I do as a writer, I work with situations, characters, certain situations and characters that appeal to me. And then, I try to imagine them and write the story that seems to flow from them. At a certain point, I can realize the themes are merging from this. But I never start from a thematic point of view, that I'm going to write about reinvention of self, identity, or any of these things. Usually, after the book is finished and I start talking about it, that it becomes analytical in that way. And in some ways it's a distortion of what the process has been, writing the book.
JEFFREY EUGENIDES
interview, 3 AM Magazine
You want to be a writer? Good for you. So does that guy. And that girl. And him. And her. And that old dude. And that young broad. And your neighbor. And your mailman. And that Chihuahua. And that copy machine. Ahead of you is an ocean of wannabe ink slaves and word earners. I don't say this to daunt you. Or to be dismissive. But you have to differentiate yourself, and the way you do that is by doing rather than pretending.
CHUCK WENDIG
The Kick-Ass Writer
When I write, I don't know what is going to emerge. I begin in a condition of complete unknowing, an utter nakedness of concept or goal. A word appears, another word appears, an image. It is a moving into mystery.
JANE HIRSHFIELD
The Atlantic Online, September 18, 1997
When you're telling a story, you've got to give details.
GAO XINGJIAN
Dialogue and Rebuttal
Few sensible authors are happy discussing the creative process -- it is, after all, black magic, and may lose its power if we look that particular gift horse too closely in the mouth.
EDWARD ALBEE
introduction, Three Tall Women
I've discovered that rejections are not altogether a bad thing. They teach a writer to rely on his own judgment and to say in his heart of hearts, "To hell with you."
SAUL BELLOW
attributed, Putting Your Passion Into Print
I truly believe that writing is a continuum--so the different genres and forms are simply stops along the same continuum. Different ideas that need to be expressed sometimes require different forms for the ideas to float better.
CHRIS ABANI
interview, UTNE Reader, June 2010
Some writers love to boast that they can write anywhere: in a cafe, in a park -- some can probably write underwater in a cage with sharks circling. But again it smacks of the cultivated self-image. JK Rowling writing in a café with a baby = potential mythology? Hemingway famously claimed that he could create anywhere, explaining, "the only good place to work is your head" -- but we all know what he did to his head in the end.
ROSEMARY JENKINSON
"Writing is not about youth but about spark", Irish Times, March 27, 2017
To me the question is always this: if a ray of light came out of the sky and said, "Your next book will never be published -- would you still write it?" If the answer is yes, the book is worth writing.
MARKUS ZUSAK
"Why I Write", The Guardian, March 28, 2008
The great thing for me, now, is that writing has become more and more interesting. Not just as a craft but as a way into things that are not described. It's a thing of discovering. That's when writing is really working. You're on the trail of something and you don't quite know what it is.
SAM SHEPARD
The Observer, March 20, 2010
Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of--but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN
The Notebooks of Lazarus Long
I'm never lonely when I'm writing, because you live with the characters that are so alive in your mind. And you really see them and know them and get to be friends with them.
JULIE ANDREWS
interview, American Libraries Magazine