WRITING QUOTES XXV

quotations about writing

I've found it incredibly helpful to make writing a routine. I don't sit down with the intention of creating an article that goes viral or some savvy sales page. I sit down and force myself to get my thoughts out on paper or in my laptop. If we choose the same time everyday our physiology is automatically going to start getting prepared to allow thoughts to flow to paper. After awhile of doing this you might even find that your ideas start coming to you shortly before you're scheduled writing time. I've found myself skipping my morning tea because I had such great ideas/thoughts and wanted to quickly get them out of my head and onto paper.

DANIELLE SABRINA

"5 Habits Holding You Back From Creating Great Content", Huffington Post, February 29, 2016


Nothing is more clear than that every plot, worth the name, must be elaborated to its dénouement before any thing be attempted with the pen. It is only with the dénouement constantly in view that we can give a plot its indispensable air of consequence, or causation, by making the incidents, and especially the tone at all points, tend to the development of the intention.

EDGAR ALLAN POE

"The Philosophy of Composition"

Tags: Edgar Allan Poe


I can't understand why a person will take a year or two to write a novel when he can easily buy one for a few dollars.

FRED ALLEN

attributed, Books: Their History, Art, Power, Glory, Infamy and Suffering According to Their Creators, Friends and Enemies

Tags: Fred Allen


Writing is a conversation, to me. The best kind. You can't get interrupted.

GERALD ASHER

speech at the Symposium for Professional Wine Writers, February 2011

Tags: Gerald Asher


The moment comes when a character does or says something you hadn't thought about. At that moment he's alive and you leave it to him.

GRAHAM GREENE

New York Times, October 9, 1985


Everything you look at can be turned into a story ... you can make a tale of everything you touch.

HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN

"The Elder Tree Mother"

Tags: Hans Christian Andersen


You must keep sending work out; you must never let a manuscript do nothing but eat its head off in a drawer. You send that work out again and again, while you're working on another one. If you have talent, you will receive some measure of success -- but only if you persist.

ISAAC ASIMOV

attributed, How to Become a Famous Writer Before You're Dead

Tags: Isaac Asimov


Writing is an act of blind faith that out there, somewhere, someone will read and enjoy, understand.

JAMES V. SCHALL

"The Creative Catholic: Fr. James V. Schall S.J. on the art and vocation of writing", Catholic World Report, March 27, 2017


I tend to be a plotter, just because I do have to write an outline of the book for my publisher, and I like to have an idea of where I'm headed. That said, I don't treat the outline as cast in stone, and I often get better ideas as I write, so the outline is a living thing. What often drives change is when I start writing a particular character and she or he asserts themselves more strongly than I thought they would.

JEFF ABBOTT

"At the Mercy of Storytellers: MysteryPeople Q&A with Jeff Abbott", Mystery People, July 17, 2017

Tags: Jeff Abbott


Having your book turned into a movie is like seeing your oxen turned into bouillon cubes.

JOHN LE CARRÉ

attributed, Bad TV: The Very Best of the Very Worst

Tags: John le Carré


I don't believe in the notion that some characters have lives of their own and the author follows after them. The author has to be careful not to force the character to do something that would go against the logic of that character's personality, but the character does not have independence. The character is trapped in the author's hand, in my hand, but he is trapped in a way he does not know he is trapped. The characters are on strings, but the strings are loose; the characters enjoy the illusion of freedom, of independence, but they cannot go where I do not want them to go. When that happens, the author must pull on the string and say to them, I am in charge here.

JOSÉ SARAMAGO

The Paris Review, winter 1998

Tags: José Saramago


I've gotten a little superstitious about listening to music when I write. Once a story is going somewhere, I keep listening to the same music whenever I work on that story. It seems to help me keep in voice, and alternatively, if I need to make some kind of dramatic shift, I'll go and put on something different to shake myself awake.

KELLY LINK

"Words by Flashlight", Sybil's Garage, June 7, 2006

Tags: Kelly Link


I demand that my books be judged with utmost severity, by knowledgeable people who know the rules of grammar and of logic, and who will seek beneath the footsteps of my commas the lice of my thought in the head of my style.

LOUIS ARAGON

Treatise on Style

Tags: Louis Aragon


I want to do something splendid ... something heroic or wonderful that won't be forgotten after I'm dead ... I think I shall write books.

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

Little Women

Tags: Louisa May Alcott


Writing is eternal,
For therein the dead heart liveth, the clay-cold tongue is eloquent,
And the quick eye of the reader is cleared by the reed of the scribe.
As a fossil in the rock, or a coin in the mortar of a ruin,
So the symbolled thoughts tell of a departed soul:
The plastic hand hath its witness in a statue, and exactitude of vision in a picture,
And so, the mind, that was among us, in its writings is embalmed.

MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER

Proverbial Philosophy

Tags: Martin Farquhar Tupper


What I like to do is write the story, see where it takes me -- and then check out the details I don't know. When I first started writing, there were a lot of things about the world that I understood but didn't have the vocabulary for -- and even more things that I just had no idea about. For instance, do you know all the parts of a door frame? Or what flowers bloom in the spring in alpine climates? There's a surprising amount of homework involved in writing a book.

PATRICIA BRIGGS

interview, Bitten by Books, March 30, 2010


I turn sentences around. That's my life. I write a sentence and then I turn it around. Then I look at it and turn it around again.

PHILIP ROTH

Ghost Writer

Tags: Philip Roth


I write fiction and I'm told it’s autobiography, I write autobiography and I'm told it's fiction, so since I'm so dim and they're so smart, let them decide what it is or it isn't.

PHILIP ROTH

Deception: A Novel


The reason a writer writes a book is to forget a book and the reason a reader reads one is to remember it.

THOMAS WOLFE

The Autobiography of an American Novelist


What writers do is they tell their own story constantly through other people's stories. They imagine other people, and those other people are carrying the burden of their struggles, their questions about themselves.

TOBIAS WOLFF

Fiction Writers Review, April 5, 2009

Tags: Tobias Wolff