I love deadlines. I like the
whooshing sound they make as they fly by. Douglas Adams
There are two kinds of writer:
those that make you think, and those that make you wonder. Brian Aldiss
A writer should say to himself, not, How can I
get more money?, but How can I reach more readers (without lowering
standards)? Brian Aldiss
The story...must be a conflict, and
specifically, a conflict between the forces of good and evil within a single
person. Maxwell Anderson
When a man publishes a book,
there are so many stupid things said that he declares he'll never do it again.
The praise is almost always worse than the criticism. Sherwood Anderson
You know how it is in the kid's
book world; it's just bunny eat bunny.
Anonymous
Character gives us qualities,
but it is in actions - what we do - that we are happy or the reverse....All
human happiness and misery take the form of action. Aristotle
Have something to say, and say
it as clearly as you can. That is the only secret. Matthew Arnold
It is the writer who might
catch the imagination of young people, and plant a seed that will flower and
come to fruition. Isaac Asimov
No one suggests that writing
about science will turn the entire world into a model of judgment and creative
thought. It will be enough if they spread the knowledge as widely as possible.
Isaac Asimov
Rejection slips, or form
letters, however tactfully phrased, are lacerations of the soul, if not quite
inventions of the devil - but there is no way around them. Isaac Asimov
To most readers the word
'fiction' is an utter fraud. They are entirely convinced that each character
has an exact counterpart in real life and that any small discrepancy with that
counterpart is a simple error on the author's part. Consequently, they are
totally at a loss if anything essential is altered. Make Abraham Lincoln a
dentist, put the Gettysburg Address on his tongue, and nobody will recognize
it. Louis Auchincloss
The only thing I was fit for
was to be a writer, and this notion rested solely on my suspicion that I would
never be fit for real work, and that writing didn't require any. Russell Baker
Unless a writer is extremely old when he dies,
in which case he has probably become a neglected institution, his death must
always be seen as untimely. This is because a real writer is always shifting
and changing and searching. The world has many labels for him, of which the
most treacherous is the label of Success. James Baldwin
If the artist does not fling
himself, without reflecting, into his work, as Curtis flung himself into the
yawning gulf, as the soldier flings himself into the enemy's trenches, and if,
once in this crater, he does not work like a miner on whom the walls of his
gallery have fallen in; if he contemplates difficulties instead of overcoming
them one by one...he is simply looking on at the suicide of his own talent.
Honore de Balzac
It took me fifteen years to discover I had no
talent for writing, but I couldn't give it up because by that time I was too
famous. Robert Benchley
Why do writers write? Because
it isn't there. Thomas Berger
He was such a bad writer, they
revoked his poetic license. Milton Berle
And as to experience--well,
think how little some good poets have had, or how much some bad ones have. Elizabeth Bishop
Being a poet is one of the
unhealthier jobs--no regular hours, so many temptations! Elizabeth Bishop
A best seller was a book which
somehow sold well simply because it was selling well. S. Boorstein
In science there is a dictum:
don't add an experiment to an experiment. Don't make things unnecessarily
complicated. In writing fiction, the more fantastic the tale, the plainer the
prose should be. Don't ask your readers to admire your words when you want them
to believe your story. Ben Bova
There is probably no hell for
authors in the next world -- they suffer so much from critics and publishers in
this. C. N. Bovee
Bring all your intelligence to
bear on your beginning. Elizabeth Bowen
Any man who keeps working is
not a failure. He may not be a great writer, but if he applies the
old-fashioned virtues of hard, constant labor, he'll eventually make some kind
of career for himself as writer. Ray
Bradbury
First, find out what your hero
wants, then just follow him! Ray
Bradbury
Beware of self-indulgence. The
romance surrounding the writing profession carries several myths: that one must
suffer in order to be creative; that one must be cantankerous and objectionable
in order to be bright; that ego is paramount over skill; that one an rise to a
level from which one can tell the reader to go to hell. These myths, if
believed, can ruin you. If you believe
you can make a living as a writer, you already have enough ego. David Brin
If you have other things in
your life -- family, friends, good productive day work -- these can interact
with your writing and the sum will be all the richer. David Brin
The writer is important only by
dint of the territory he colonizes. Van Wyck Brooks
Either a writer doesn't want to
talk about his work, or he talks about it more than you want. Anatole Broyard
Sex almost always disappoints
me in novels. Everything can be said or done now, and that's what I often find:
everything, a feeling of generality or dispersal. But in my experience, true
sex is so particular, so peculiar to the person who yearns for it. Only he or
she, and no one else, would desire so very much that very person under those
circumstances. In fiction, I miss that sense of terrific specificity. Anatole Broyard
Don't explain why it works;
explain how you use it. Steven Brust
Literature is all, or mostly,
about sex. Anthony Burgess
Style has always been in my
mind the author's Self, the creative expression of that Self. Whit Burnett
I have been successful probably
because I have always realized that I knew nothing about writing and have
merely tried to tell an interesting story entertainingly. Edgar Rice Burroughs
If you write one story, it may
be bad; if you write a hundred, you have the odds in your favor. Edgar Rice Burroughs
The reason 99% of all stories
written are not bought by editors is very simple. Editors never buy manuscripts
that are left on the closet shelf at home.
John Campbell
Finishing a book is just like
you took a child out in the back yard and shot it. Truman Capote
I believe more in the scissors
than I do in the pencil. Truman Capote
Everybody walks past a thousand
story ideas every day. The good writers are the ones who see five or six of
them. Most people don't see any. Orson
Scott Card
Short stories are designed to
deliver their impact in as few pages as possible. A tremendous amount is left
out, and a good short story writer learns to include only the most essential
information. Orson Scott Card
Most of the basic material a
writer works with is acquired before the age of fifteen. Willa Cather
Coleridge was a drug addict.
Poe was an alcoholic. Marlowe was killed by a man whom he was treacherously
trying to stab. Pope took money to keep a woman's name out of a satire then
wrote a piece so that she could still be recognized anyhow. Chatterton killed
himself. Byron was accused of incest. Do you still want to a writer--and if so,
why? Bennett Cerf
If you look at anything long enough, say just
that wall in front of you -- it will come out of that wall. Anton Chekhov
My own experience is that once
a story has been written, one has to cross out the beginning and the end. It is
there that we authors do most of our lying.
Anton Chekhov
When men ask me how I know so
much about men, they get a simple answer: everything I know about men, I
learned from me. Anton Chekhov
It is perfectly okay to write garbage--as long
as you edit brilliantly. C. J. Cherryh
Next to doing things that
deserve to be written, nothing gets a man more credit, or gives him more
pleasure than to write things that deserve to be read. Lord Chesterfield
I've always believed in writing without a
collaborator, because when two people are writing the same book, each believes
he gets all the worries and only half the royalties. Agatha Christie
I firmly believe every book was
meant to be written. Marchette Chute
The spirit of creation is the
spirit of contradiction. It is the breakthrough of appearances toward an
unknown reality. Jean Cocteau
Every great and original
writer, in proportion as he is great or original, must himself create the taste
by which he is to be relished. Samuel
Taylor Coleridge
Put down everything that comes
into your head and then you're a writer. But an author is one who can judge his
own stuff's worth, without pity, and destroy most of it. Colette
My task...is, by the power of
the written word to make you hear, to make you feel - it is, before all, to
make you see. That - and no more - and it is everything. Joseph Conrad
Only in men's imagination does
every truth find an effective and undeniable existence. Imagination, not
invention, is the supreme master of art as of life. Joseph Conrad
A writer without interest or
sympathy for the foibles of his fellow man is not conceivable as a writer. Joseph Conrad
There are three difficulties in
authorship: to write anything worth publishing -- to find honest men to publish
it -- and to get sensible men to read it.
Charles Caleb Colton
Books aren't written, they're
rewritten. Including your own. It is one of the hardest things to accept,
especially after the seventh rewrite hasn't quite done it...Michael Crichton
Most writers can write books
faster than publishers can write checks.
Richard Curtis
Never throw up on an
editor. Ellen Datlow
In writing a series of stories
about the same characters, plan the whole series in advance in some detail, to
avoid contradictions and inconsistencies.
L. Sprague de Camp
There is no mistaking the
dismay on the face of a writer who has just heard that his brain child is a
deformed idiot. L. Sprague de Camp
The imagination is the spur of
delights...all depends upon it, it is the mainspring of everything; now, is it
not by the means of the imagination one knows joy? Is it not of the imagination
that the sharpest pleasures arise?
Marquis DeSade
Every novel should have a
beginning, a middle, and an end. Peter
De Vries
I love being a writer. What I
can't stand is the paperwork. Peter de Vries
Make everybody fall out of the
plane first, and then explain who they were and why they were in the plane to
begin with. Nancy Ann Dibble
Science fiction writers, I am
sorry to say, really do not know anything. We can't talk about science, because
our knowledge of it is limited and unofficial, and usually our fiction is
dreadful. Philip K. Dick
A word is dead
When it is said,
Some say.
I say it just begins
to live that day.
Emily Dickinson
Writers are always selling
somebody out. Joan Didion
What we call fiction is the
ancient way of knowing, the total discourse that antedates all the special
vocabularies....Fiction is democratic, it reasserts the authority of the single
mind to make and remake the world. E. L.
Doctorow
Writing a novel is like driving
a car at night. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make
the whole trip that way. E. L. Doctorow
Writing is turning one's worst
moments into money. J. P. Donleavy
As for me, this is my story: I worked and was
tortured. You know what it means to compose? No, thank God, you do not! I
believe you have never written to order, by the yard, and have never
experienced that hellish torture. Fyodor
Dostoevsky
An excellent precept for
writers: have a clear idea of all the phrases and expressions you need, and you
will find them. Ximenes Doudan
If it has horses and swords in
it, it's a fantasy, unless it also has a rocketship in it, in which case it
becomes science fiction. The only thing that'll turn a story with a rocketship
in it back into fantasy is the Holy Grail.
Debra Doyle
To write good SF today...you
must push further and harder, reach deeper into your own mind until you break
through into the strange and terrible country wherein live your own
dreams. Gardner Dozois
If you start with a bang, you
won't end with a whimper. T.S. Eliot
There is no method except to be
very intelligent. T. S. Eliot
People do not deserve to have
good writing, they are so pleased with bad.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The virtue of books is to be
readable. Ralph Waldo Emerson
Nothing, not love, not greed,
not passion or hatred, is stronger than a writer's need to change another
writer's copy. Arthur Evans
At one time I thought the most
important thing was talent. I think now that the young man or the young woman
must possess or teach himself, training himself, in infinite patience, which is
to try and to try until it comes right. He must train himself in ruthless
intolerance--that is to throw away anything that is false no matter how much he
might love that page or that paragraph. The most important thing is insight,
that is to be--curiosity--to wonder, to mull, and to muse why it is that man
does what he does, and if you have that, then I don't think the talent makes
much difference, whether you've got it or not.
William Faulkner
Get it down. Take chances. It
may be bad, but it's the only way you can do anything really good. William Faulkner
It begins with a character,
usually, and once he stands up on his feet and begins to move, all I can do is
trot along behind him with a paper and pencil trying to keep up long enough to
put down what he says and does. William
Faulkner
The work never matches the
dream of perfection the artist has to start with.
William Faulkner
There is no idea so brilliant
or original that a sufficiently-untalented writer can't screw it up. Raymond Feist
The ideal view for daily
writing, hour for hour, is the blank brick wall of a cold-storage warehouse.
Failing this, a stretch of sky will do, cloudless if possible.
Edna Ferber
To the composition of novels
and romances, nothing is necessary but paper, pens, and ink, with the manual
capacity of using them. Henry Fielding
Begin with an individual, and
before you know it you have created a type; begin with a type, and you find you
have created - nothing. F. Scott
Fitzgerald
Draw your chair up close to the
edge of the precipice and I'll tell you a story. -F. Scott Fitzgerald
Find the key emotion; this may
be all you need know to find your short story.
F. Scott Fitzgerald
To have something to say is a
question of sleepless nights and worry and endless ratiocination of a subject -
of endless trying to dig out of the essential truth, the essential
justice. F. Scott Fitzgerald
I am irritated by my own writing. I am like a
violinist whose ear is true, but whose fingers refuse to reproduce precisely
the sound he hears within. Gustave
Flaubert
Observe, don't imitate. John M. Ford
The historian records, but the
novelist creates. E. M. Forster
A novel must give a sense of
permanence as well as a sense of life.
E. M. Forster
Suspense: the only literary
tool that has any effect upon tyrants and savages.
E. M. Forster
Don't be dismayed by the
opinions of editors, or critics. They are only the traffic cops of the
arts. Gene Fowler
Writing is easy; all you do is
sit staring at a blank sheet of paper until the drops of blood form on your
forehead. Gene Fowler
To know is nothing at all; to
imagine is everything. Anatole France
If you would not be forgotten,
as soon as you are dead and
rotten,
either write things worth
reading,
or do things worth the writing.
Benjamin Franklin
The greatest rules of dramatic
writing are conflict, conflict, conflict.
James Frey
Style is less the man than the
way a man takes himself. Robert Frost
An artist's sensitivity to
criticism is, at least in part, an effort to keep unimpaired the zest, or
confidence, or arrogance, which he needs to make creation possible; or an
instinct to climb through his problems in his own way as he should, and
must. Christopher Fry
When writing a novel, that’s
pretty much entirely what life turns into: 'House burned down. Car stolen. Cat
exploded. Did 1500 easy words, so all in all it was a pretty good day.' Neil Gaiman
In nearly all good fiction, the
basic - all but inescapable - plot form is this: A central character wants
something, goes after it despite opposition (perhaps including his own doubts),
and so arrives at a win, lose, or draw.
John Gardner
If you haven't got an idea,
start a story anyway. You can always throw it away, and maybe by the time you
get to the fourth page you will have an idea, and you'll only have to throw
away the first three pages. William
Campbell Gault
Half of being smart is knowing
what you're dumb at. David Gerrold
There is more pleasure to
building castles in the air than on the ground.
Edward Gibbon
Often with good sentiments we
produce bad literature. Andre Gide
Whatever you can do, or dream
you can, begin it; Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
In brief, I spend half my time
trying to learn the secrets of other writers -- to apply them to the expression
of my own thoughts. Shirley Ann Grau
There's no money in poetry, but
then there's no poetry in money either.
Robert Graves
Instead of marveling with
Johnson, how anything but profit should incite men to literary labor, I am
rather surprised that mere emolument should induce them to labor so well. Thomas Green
Plotting is like sex. Plotting
is about desire and satisfaction, anticipation and release. You have to arouse
your reader's desire to know what happens, to unravel the mystery, to see good
triumph. You have to sustain it, keep it warm, feed it, just a little bit, not
too much at a time, as your story goes on. That's called suspense. It can bring
desire to a frenzy, in which case you are in a good position to bring off a
wonderful climax. Colin Greenland
Plotting isn't like sex,
because you can go back and adjust it afterwards. Whether you plan your story
beforehand or not, if the climax turns out to be the revelation that the mad
professor's anti-gravity device actually works, you must go back and silently
delete all those flying cars buzzing around the city on page one. If you want
to reveal something, you need to hide it properly first. Colin Greenland
A writer will seal his own
coffin,
And the interests of readers
will soften,
If the author insists
On the usual twists,
And he goes to the Wells once
too often.
Mark Grenier
The writer's genetic
inheritance and her or his experiences shape the writer into a unique
individual, and it is this uniqueness that is the writer's only stuff for sale. James Gunn
Asking a working writer what he
thinks about critics is like asking a lamppost how it feels about dogs. Christopher Hampton
Put weather in. Joseph Hansen
It's better to write about
things you feel than about things you know about.
L. P. Hartley
Don't use metaphors in fantasy;
your readers will take them literally. Or they may take them figuratively --
but if so, they'll also take your magics and transformations figuratively.
Either way, you're in trouble. Teresa
Nielsen Hayden
The essence of drama is that
man cannot walk away from the consequences of his own deeds. Harold Hayes
Writing is not necessarily
something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands
afterwards. Robert A. Heinlein
In a good play, everyone is in
the right. Fredrich Hebbel
All good books are alike in
that they are truer than if they had really happened and after you are finished
reading one you will feel that all that happened to you and afterwards it all
belongs to you; the good and the bad, the ecstasy, the remorse and sorrow, the
people and the places and how the weather was. If you can get so that you can
give that to people, then you are a writer.
Ernest Hemingway
Easy writing makes hard
reading. Ernest Hemingway
If a writer of prose knows
enough about what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the
reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those
things as strongly as though the writer had stated them. The dignity of movement
of an iceberg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water. A writer who
omits things because he does not know them only makes hollow places in his
writing. Ernest Hemingway
It's none of their business
that you have to learn to write. Let them think you were born that way. Ernest Hemingway
My aim is to put down what I
see and what I feel in the best and simplest way I can tell it. Ernest Hemingway
Prose is architecture, not
interior decoration. Ernest Hemingway
Manuscript: something submitted
in haste and returned at leisure. Oliver
Herford
To be a writer is to sit down
at one's desk in the chill portion of every day, and to write; not waiting for
the little jet of the blue flame of genius to start from the breastbone - just
plain going at it, in pain and delight. To be a writer is to throw away a great
deal, not to be satisfied, to type again, and then again, and once more, and
over and over.... John Hersey
I never dare to write as funny
as I can. Oliver Wendell Holmes
What a blessed thing it is that
nature, when she invented, manufactured and patented her authors, contrived to
make critics out of the chips that were left!
Oliver Wendell Holmes
Editor: A person employed by a
newspaper, whose business it is to separate the wheat from the chaff, and to
see that the chaff is printed. Elbert
Hubbard
Only a person with a Best
Seller mind can write Best Sellers.
Aldous Huxley
To write fiction, one needs a
whole series of inspirations about people in an actual environment, and then a
whole lot of work on the basis of those inspirations. Aldous Huxley
A writer never has a vacation.
For a writer life consists of either writing or thinking about writing. Eugene Ionesco
Half my life is an act of
revision. John Irving
The literary world is made up
of little confederacies, each looking upon its own members as the lights of the
universe; and considering all others as mere transient meteors, doomed to soon
fall and be forgotten, while its own luminaries are to shine steadily into
immortality. Washington Irving
Make him [the reader] think the
evil, make him think it for himself, and you are released from weak
specifications. Henry James
What is either a picture or a
novel that is not character? Henry James
Writing is not primarily
escape, but use. Henry James
As long as mixed grills and
combination salads are popular, anthologies will undoubtedly continue in
favor. Elizabeth Janeway
The most valuable of all
talents is that of never using two words when one will do.
Thomas Jefferson
Sir, nobody but a blockhead
ever wrote except for money. Samuel
Johnson
Abuse is often of service.
There is nothing so dangerous to an author as silence.
Samuel Johnson
It is advantageous to an author
that his book should be attacked as well as praised. Fame is a shuttlecock. If
it be struck at one end of the room, it will soon fall to the ground. To keep
it up, it must be struck at both ends.
Samuel Johnson
...it will not always happen
that the success of a poet is proportionate to his labor.
Samuel Johnson
Tediousness is the most fatal
of all faults. Samuel Johnson
Genius is not a quality, but
only a quantitative difference in a combination of attributes contained in all
persons. Dr. Ernst Jones
Honest criticism is hard to
take, particularly from a relative, a friend, an acquaintance, or a
stranger. Franklin Jones
I went for years not finishing
anything. Because, of course, when you finish something you can be judged...I
had poems which were re-written so many times I suspect it was just a way of
avoiding sending them out. Erica Jong
The artist is not a person
endowed with free will who seeks his own ends, but one who allows art to realize
its supreme purpose through him. Carl Jung
I get up in the morning,
torture a typewriter until it screams, then stop. Clarence Budington Kelland
Confronted by an absolutely
infuriating review it is sometimes helpful for the victim to do a little
personal research on the critic. Is there any truth to the rumor that he had no
formal education beyond the age of eleven? In any event, is he able to construct
a simple English sentence? Do his participles dangle? When moved to lyricism
does he write "I had a fun time"? Was he ever arrested for burglary?
I don't know that you will prove anything this way, but it is perfectly
harmless and quite soothing. Jean Kerr
I am a part of all I have
read. John Kieran
If you would write emotionally,
be first unemotional. If you would move your readers to tears, do not let them
see you cry. James J. Kilpatrick
I try to create sympathy for my
characters, then turn the monsters loose.
Stephen King
Close the door. Write with no
one looking over your shoulder. Don't try to figure out what other people want
to hear from you; figure out what you have to say. It's the one and only thing
you have to offer. Barbara Kingsolver
This manuscript of yours that
has just come back from another editor is a precious package. Don't consider it
rejected. Consider that you've addressed it 'to the editor who can appreciate
my work' and it has simply come back stamped 'Not at this address'. Just keep
looking for the right address. Barbara
Kingsolver
Use your imagination. Trust me,
your lives are not interesting. Don't write them down. W. B. Kinsella
I keep six honest serving men
(They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why
and When
and How and Where and Who.
Rudyard Kipling
There are nine and sixty ways
Of constructing tribal lays,
And every single one of them is
right!
Rudyard Kipling
Words are the most powerful
drug used by mankind. Rudyard Kipling
Poets are interested mostly in
death and commas. Carolyn Kizer
The trouble with science
fiction is that you can write about everything: time, space, all the future,
all the past, all of the universe, any kind of creature imaginable. That's too
big. It provides no focus for the artist. An artist needs, in order to
function, some narrowing of focus. Usually, in the history of art, the narrower
the focus in which the artist is forced to work, the greater the art. Philip Klass
Science fiction is what I point
at when I say science fiction. Damon
Knight
Fiction is about stuff that's
screwed up. Nancy Kress
In general...there's no point
in writing hopeless novels. We all know we're going to die; what's important is
the kind of men and women we are in the face of this. Anne Lamott
We are a species that needs and
wants to understand who we are. Sheep lice do not seem to share this longing,
which is one reason why they write so little.
Anne Lamott
Writing is a fairly lonely
business unless you invite people in to watch you do it, which is often
distracting and then have to ask them to leave.
Marc Lawrence
Having been unpopular in high
school is not just cause for book publication.
Fran Lebowitz
If science fiction is the
mythology of modern technology, then its myth is tragic.
Ursula K. Le Guin
In the tale, in the telling, we
are all one blood. Take the tale in your teeth, then, and bite till the blood
runs, hoping it's not poison; and we will all come to the end together, and
even to the beginning: living, as we do, in the middle. Ursula K. Le Guin
The unread story is not a
story; it is little black marks on wood pulp. The reader, reading it, makes it
live: a live thing, a story. Ursula K.
Le Guin
That's the essential goal of
the writer: you slice out a piece of yourself and slap it down on the desk in
front of you. You try to put it on paper, try to describe it in a way that the
reader can see and feel and touch. You paste all your nerve endings into it and
then give it out to strangers who don't know you or understand you. And you
will feel everything that happens to that story -- if they like it, if they
hate it. Because no matter how you try to distance yourself from it, to some
degree you feel that if they hate it, they hate you. Which isn't the truth, you
understand. At least you understand that in your head...but not always in your
heart. Stephen Leigh
You may be able to take a break
from writing, but you won't be able to take a break from being a writer... Stephen Leigh
All the information you need
can be given in dialogue. Elmore Leonard
The writer who cannot sometimes
throw away a thought about which another man would have written dissertations,
without worry whether or not the reader will find it, will never become a great
writer. Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Great is the art of beginning, but greater is the art of
ending. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
ny magazine-cover hack can splash paint around wildly and
call it a nightmare, or a witches sabbath or a portrait of the devil; but only
a great painter can make such a thing really scare or ring true. That's because
only a real artist knows the anatomy of the terrible, or the physiology of
fear. H. P. Lovecraft
Nature fits all her children with something to do, he who
would write and can't write, can surely review. James Russell Lowell
James Blish told me I had the worst case of "said
bookism" (that is, using every word except said to indicate dialogue). He
told me to limit the verbs to said, replied, asked, and answered and only when
absolutely necessary. Anne McCaffrey
Tell the readers a story! Because without a story, you are
merely using words to prove you can string them together in logical
sentences. Anne McCaffrey
Writing is not a genteel profession; it's quite nasty and
tough and kind of dirty.
Rosemary Mahoney
The task of a writer consists in being able to make
something out of an idea.
Thomas Mann
A critic knows more than the author he criticizes, or just
as much, or at least somewhat less.
Cardinal Manning
If you go too far in fantasy and break the string of logic,
and become nonsensical, someone will surely remind you of your
dereliction....Pound for pound, fantasy makes a tougher opponent for the
creative person. Richard Matheson
All the words I use in my stories can be found in the
dictionary -- it's just a matter of arranging them into the right
sentences. Somerset Maugham
If you can tell stories, create characters, devise
incidents, and have sincerity and passion, it doesn't matter a damn how you
write. Somerset Maugham
There are three rules for writing. Unfortunately, no one can
agree what they are.
Somerset Maugham
We do not write because we want to; we write because we have
to. Somerset Maugham
To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty
theme. Herman Melville
You write that first draft really to see how it's going to
come out. James A. Michener
A person who publishes a book willfully appears before the
populace with his pants down...If it is a good book nothing can hurt him. If it
is a bad book, nothing can help him.
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Writing is its own reward.
Henry Miller
Almost anyone can be an author; the business is to collect
money and fame from this state of being.
A. A. Milne
When you take stuff from one writer, it's plagiarism; but
when you take it from many writers, it's research. William Mizner
I wonder why murder is considered less immoral than
fornication in literature. George Moore
No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. George Moore
A man is a writer if all his words are strung in definite
sentence sounds. Marianne Moore
Anecdotes don't make good stories. Generally I dig down
underneath them so far that the story that finally comes out is not what people
thought their anecdotes were about.
Alice Munro
I have a theory of my own about what the art of the novel
is, and how it came into being....It happens because the storyteller's own
experience...has moved him to an emotion so passionate that he can no longer
keep it shut up in his heart. Lady
Murasaki
I have written - often several times - every word I have
ever published. Vladimir Nabokov
Only ambitious nonentities and hearty mediocrities exhibit
their rough drafts. It's like passing around samples of sputum. Vladimir Nabokov
Don't sell yourself short; dare to dream. You might sell to
a top market before you ever sell to a non-paying market - you won't know
unless you try. In the same way, it's good to be cooperative, but don't be too
humble either. Rheal Nadeau
I'm the kind of writer that people think other people are
reading. V. S. Naipaul
The author must keep his mouth shut when his work starts to
speak. Frederich Nietzsche
We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in
retrospection. Anais Nin
The reader has certain rights. He bought your story. Think
of this as an implicit contract. He's entitled to be entertained, instructed,
amused; maybe all three. If he quits in the middle, or puts the book down
feeling his time has been wasted, you're in violation. Larry Niven
You learn by writing short stories. Keep writing short
stories. The money's in novels, but writing short stories keeps your writing
lean and pointed. Larry Niven
If you do not have an alert and curious interest in
character and dramatic situation, if you have no visual imagination and are
unable to distinguish between honest emotional reactions and sentimental
approaches to life, you will never write a competent short story. Edward J. O'Brien
Everywhere I go I'm asked if I think the university stifles
writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them. Flannery O'Connor
The framework of the artist's ideas is clearly only that
which he is forever seeking for universality, and must be far wider than the
framework of the ideals of the patriot.
Sean O'Faolain
All writers are vain, selfish and lazy, and at the very
bottom of their motives lies a mystery. Writing a book is a long, exhausting
struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake
such a thing if one were not driven by some demon whom one can neither resist
nor understand. George Orwell
One hasn't become a writer until one has distilled writing
into a habit, and that habit has been forced into an obsession. Writing has to
be an obsession. It has to be something as organic, physiological and
psychological as speaking or sleeping or eating. Niyi Osundare
All a poet can do is warn. Wilfred Owen
No tale tells all.
Alexei Panshin
I can't write five words but that I change seven. Dorothy Parker
Everything that is written merely to please the author is
worthless. Blaise Pascal
When we see a natural style we are quite amazed and delighted,
because we expected to see an author and find a man. Blaise Pascal
The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of
ideas. Linus Pauling
Make it new. Ezra
Pound
Fantasy doesn't have to be fantastic. American writers in
particular find this much harder to grasp. You need to have your feet on the
ground as much as your head in the clouds. The cute dragon that sits on your
shoulder also craps all down your back, but this makes it more interesting
because it gives it an added dimension.
Terry Pratchett
There's no such thing as writer's block. That was invented
by people in California who couldn't write.
Terry Pratchett
I often think of a poem as a door that opens into a room
where I want to go.
Minnie Bruce Pratt
Perhaps it would be better not to be a writer, but if you
must, then write. If all feels hopeless, if that famous 'inspiration' will not
come, write. If you are a genius, you'll make your own rules, but if not - and
the odds are against it - go to your desk no matter what your mood, face the
icy challenge of the paper - write. J.
B. Priestly
The makers of the short story have rarely been good
novelists. V. S. Pritchett
Short stories can be rather stark and bare unless you put in
the right details. Details make stories human, and the more human a story can
be, the better.
V. S. Pritchett
Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate a piece of
exceptionally fine writing, obey it - and delete it before sending your
manuscript to the press. Sir Arthur
Quiller-Couch
Most beginning writers are like chefs trying to cook great
dishes that they've never tasted themselves. How can you make a great
bouillabaisse if you've never had any? If you don't really understand why
people read mysteries, then there's no way in the world you're going to write
one that anyone wants to publish. Daniel
Quinn
When you send off a short story, it sits on the editor's
desk in the same pile with stories by the most famous and honored names in
present-day writing--and it's not going to be accepted unless it's as good as
theirs. Daniel Quinn
Prune what is turgid, elevate what is commonplace, arrange
what is disorderly, introduce rhythm where the language is harsh, modify where
it is too absolute.
Marcus Fabius
Quintilianus,
Write quickly and you will never write well; write well, and
you will soon write quickly. Marcus
Fabius Quintilianus,
Words are a lens to focus one's mind. Ayn Rand
[Editors] drive us nuts. We go from near-worshipful
groveling when we submit to bitter cursing when they reject us. Ken Rand
Writers are schizophrenic. On the one hand we tell
ourselves, "This is a work of genius! I've created Art!" Then we try
to peddle it, like a widget, to The New Yorker, Playboy, or SF Age. Ken Rand
I know that if I have been working on one paragraph and I
have written it three times, it goes in the bin. Unless it comes straight out,
it is wrong, it is awkward, it does not fit.
Robert Rankin
Really, in the end, the only thing that can make you a
writer is the person that you are, the intensity of your feeling, the honesty
of your vision, the unsentimental acknowledgment of the endless interest of the
life around and within you. Virtually nobody can help you deliberately -- many
people will help you unintentionally. Santha
Rama Rau
Writing is an occupation in which you have to keep proving
your talent to those who have none.
Jules Renard
Writing is the only profession where no one considers you
ridiculous if you earn no money. Jules
Renard
All of a writer that matters is in the book or books. It is
idiotic to be curious about the person. Jean Rhys
Writers write about what obsesses them. You draw those
cards. I lost my mother when I was 14. My daughter died at the age of 6. I lost
my faith as a Catholic. When I'm writing, the darkness is always there. I go
where the pain is. Anne Rice
Fundamentally, all writing is about the same thing; it's
about dying, about the brief flicker of time we have here, and the frustration
that it creates. Mordecai Richler
What is needed is, in the end, simply this: solitude, great
inner solitude. Going into yourself and meeting no one for hours on end--that
is what you must be able to attain.
Rainer Maria Rilke
Every writer is a narcissist. This does not mean that he is
vain; it only means that he is hopelessly self-absorbed. Leo Rosten
The only reason for being a professional writer is that you
just can't help it. Leo Rosten
No fathers or mothers think their own children ugly; and
this self-deceit is yet stronger with respect to the offspring of the
mind. Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
Poetry creates the myth, the prose writer draws its
portrait. Jean-Paul Sartre
Engrave this in your brain: EVERY WRITER GETS REJECTED. You
will be no different. John Scalzi
Don't mistake a good setup for a satisfying conclusion --
many beginning writers end their stories when the real story is just ready to
begin. Stanley Schmidt
Resist the temptation to try to use dazzling style to
conceal weakness of substance. Stanley
Schmidt
If you don't know it, don't write it. Darrell Schweitzer
Writing isn't generally a lucrative source of income; only a
few, exceptional writers reach the income levels associated with the
best-sellers. Rather, most of us write because we can make a modest living, or
even supplement our day jobs, doing something about which we feel passionately.
Even at the worst of times, when nothing goes right, when the prose is clumsy
and the ideas feel stale, at least we're doing something that we genuinely
love. There's no other reason to work this hard, except that love. Melissa
Scott
And as imagination bodies forth the forms of things unknown,
the poet's pen turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothings a local
habitation and a name. William
Shakespeare
Suit the action to the word, the word to the action. William
Shakespeare
The road to ignorance is paved with good editors. George Bernard Shaw
delusive, and most transient of passions, they are required
to swear that they will remain in that exalted, abnormal, and exhausting
condition continuously until death do them part. George Bernard Shaw
The only way to avoid being miserable is not to have enough
leisure to wonder whether you are happy or not. George Bernard Shaw
Some men see things as they are and ask why. Others dream
things that never were and ask why not. George Bernard Shaw
A blank piece of paper is God's way of telling us how hard
it to be God. Sidney Sheldon
Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in
creating out of a void, but out of chaos; the materials must in the first place
be afforded; it can give form to dark, shapeless substances, but cannot bring
into being the substance itself.
Mary Shelley
There are no rules in writing. There are useful principles.
Throw them away when they're not useful. But always know what you're throwing
away. Will Shetterly
Moving around is good for creativity: the next line of
dialogue that you desperately need may well be waiting in the back of the
refrigerator or half a mile along your favorite walk. Will Shetterly
Pay no attention to what the critics say; no statue has ever
been erected to a critic.
Jean Sibelius
Stories have a beginning, a middle and an end. But not
necessarily in that order. Robert Silverberg
Writing is not a profession but a vocation of
unhappiness. Georges Simenon
Reading and weeping opens the door to one's heart, but
writing and weeping opens the window to one's soul. M. K. Simmons
Children read books, not reviews. They don't give a hoot
about critics. Isaac Bashevis Singer
The wastepaper basket is the writer's best friend. Isaac Bashevis Singer
Editors also know that the people who are really readers
want to read. They hunger to read. They will forgive a vast number of
clumsinesses and scamped work of every sort if the author will delight them
just enough to keep them able to continue.
William Sloane
Writing for me is just like building a chair, making an
artifact. The idea is that you build, create a story and cobble it together. If
it stands up, that's good. If it stands up, it's comfortable, it's a good
story, a good chair. Scott Smith
A great deal of talent is lost to the world for want of a
little courage. Sidney Smith
The main question to a novel is - did it amuse? Were you
surprised at dinner coming so soon? Did you mistake eleven for ten? Were you
too late to dress? and did you sit up beyond the usual hour? If a novel
produces these effects, it is good; if it does not - story, language, love,
scandal itself cannot save it. It is only meant to please; and it must do that
or it does nothing. Sydney Smith
The misuse of language induces evil in the soul. Socrates
We live under continual threat of two equally fearful, but
seemingly opposed destinies: unremitting banality and inconceivable terror. It
is fantasy, served out in large rations by the popular arts, which allows most
people to cope with these twin specters.
Susan Sontag
Why wouldn't you write to escape yourself as much as you
might write to express yourself. It's far more interesting to write about
others. Susan Sontag
By writing much, one learns to write well. Robert Southey
The first chapter sells the book; the last chapter sells the
next book. Mickey Spillane
People are certainly impressed by the aura of creative power
which a writer may wear, but can easily demolish it with a few well-chosen
questions. Bob Shaw has observed that the deadliest questions usually come as a
pair: "Have you published anything?" (loosely translated as: I've
never heard of you) and "What name do you write under?" (loosely
translatable as: I've definitely never heard of you).
Brian Stableford
...the vital point to remember is that the swine who just
sent your pearl of a story back with nothing but a coffee-stain and a printed
rejection slip can be wrong. You cannot take it for granted that he is wrong,
but you have an all-important margin of hope that might be enough to keep you
going. Brian Stableford
Remarks are not literature.
Gertrude Stein
Originality does not consist in saying what no one has ever
said before, but in saying exactly what you think yourself. James F. Stephan
When two people are under the influence of the most violent,
most insane, most
What's hard, in hacking as in fiction, is not writing, it's
deciding what to write. Neal Stephenson
I write plays because dialogue is the most respectable way
of contradicting myself. Tom Stoppard
If creative work protects a man against mental illness, it
is small wonder that he pursues it with avidity; and even if the state of mind
he is seeking to avoid is no more than a mild state of depression or apathy,
this still constitutes a cogent reason for engaging in creative work even when
it brings no obvious external benefit in its train. Anthony Storr
The only two kinds of books could earn an American writer a
living are cookbooks and detective novels. Rex Stout
Like everyone else, I am going to die. But the words--the
words live on for as long as there are readers to see them, audiences to hear
them. It is immortality by proxy. It is not really a bad deal, all things
considered. J. Michael Straczynski
When in doubt, blow something up. J. Michael Straczynski
Every writer must acknowledge and be able to handle the
unalterable fact that he has, in effect, given himself a life sentence in solitary
confinement. The ordinary world of work is closed to him -- and that if he's
lucky! Peter Straub
A science fiction story is a story with a human problem, and
a human solution, that would not have happened at all without its scientific
content. Theodore Sturgeon
A short story...can be held in the mind all in one piece.
It's less like a building than a fiendish device. Every bit of it must be
cunningly made and crafted to fit together perfectly and without waste so it
can perform its task with absolute precision. That purpose might be to move the
reader to tears or wonder, to awaken the conscience, to console, to gladden, or
to enlighten. But each short story has one chief purpose, and every sentence,
phrase, and word is crafted to achieve that end. The ideal short story is like
a knife--strongly made, well balanced, and with an absolute minimum of moving
parts. Michael Swanwick
Whatever inspiration is, it's born from a continuous "I
don't know." Wislawa Szymborska
In a novel, the author gives the leading character
intelligence and distinction. Fate goes to less trouble: mediocrities play a
part in great events simply from happening to be there. Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Perigord
If you try to please audiences, uncritically accepting their
tastes, it can only mean that you have no respect for them: that you simply
want to collect their money.
Andrei Tarkovsky
The only way to learn to write is to write. Peggy Teeters
No tale is so good...but can be spoilt in the telling. Terence, 160 BC
There are thousands of thoughts lying within a man that he
does not know till he takes up the pen and writes. William Makepeace Thackeray
Not that the story need be long, but it will take a long
while to make it short.
Henry David Thoreau
How vain it is to sit down to write if you have not stood up
to live. Henry David Thoreau
One writes such a story [The Lord of the Rings] not out of
the leaves of trees still to be observed, nor by means of botany and
soil-science; but it grows like a seed in the dark out of the leaf-mold of the
mind: out of all that has been seen or thought or read, that has long ago been
forgotten, descending into the deeps. No doubt there is much personal
selection, as with a gardener: what one throws on one's personal compost-heap;
and my mold is evidently made largely of linguistic matter. J. R. R. Tolkien
Drama, instead of telling us the whole of a man's life, must
place him in such a situation, tie such a knot, that when it is untied, the
whole man is visible. Leo Tolstoy
Fiction writing is great. You can make up almost anything.
Ivana Trump, upon finishing her first novel
An essential element for good writing is a good ear: One
must listen to the sound of one's own prose.
Barbara Tuchman
Inside every fat book is a thin book trying to get out. John William Tuohy
I never started from ideas but always from character. Ivan Turgenev
As for the adjective, when in doubt leave it out. Mark Twain
Most writers regard the truth as their most valuable
possession, and therefore are most economical in its use. Mark Twain
The test of any good fiction is that you should care
something for the characters; the good to succeed, the bad to fail. The trouble
with most fiction is that you want them all to land in hell, together, as
quickly as possible. Mark Twain
Get you facts first, and then you can distort 'em as much as
you please. Mark Twain
Substitute "damn" every time you're inclined to
write "very;" your editor will delete it and the writing will be just
as it should be. Mark Twain
The time to begin writing an article is when you have
finished it to your satisfaction. By
that time you begin to clearly and logically perceive what it is you really
want to say. Mark Twain
A critic is a man who knows the way but can't drive the
car. Kenneth Tynan
I learned that you should feel when writing, not like Lord
Byron on a mountain top, but like a child stringing beads in kindergarten,
--happy, absorbed and quietly putting one bead on after another. Brenda Ueland
My work...is to shatter the faith of men here, there, and
everywhere, faith in affirmation, faith in negation, and faith in abstention
from faith, and this for the sake of faith in faith itself. Miguel de Unamuno
The long-lived books of tomorrow are concealed somewhere
amongst the so-far unpublished MSS of today.
Philip Unwin
The measure of artistic merit is the length to which a
writer is willing to go in following his own compulsions. John Updike
I want to write books that unlock the traffic jam in
everybody's head. John Updike
Follow the path of your aroused thought, and you will soon
meet this infernal inscription: There is nothing so beautiful as that which
does not exist. Paul Valery
You are what you read. Esko Valtaoja
I suspect that one of the reasons we create fiction is to
make sex exciting. Gore Vidal
The adjective is the enemy of the noun. Francois Marie Arouet de Voltaire
I guarantee you that no modern story scheme, even
plotlessness, will give a reader genuine satisfaction, unless one of those old-fashioned
plots is smuggled in somewhere. I don't praise plots as accurate
representations of life, but as ways of keeping readers reading. When I used to
teach creative writing, I would tell students to make their characters want
something, even if it's only a glass of water. Characters paralyzed by the
meaningless of modern life still have to drink water from time to time. One of
my students wrote a story about a nun who got a piece of dental floss stuck
between her lower left molars, and who couldn't get it out all day long. I
thought that was wonderful. The story dealt with issues a lot more important
than dental floss, but what kept readers going was anxiety about when the
dental floss would finally be removed. Nobody could read that story without fishing
around in his mouth with a finger. Kurt
Vonnegut, Jr.
I have long felt that any reviewer who expresses rage and
loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has just
put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae or banana split. Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
The art of writing is the art of applying the seat of the
pants to the seat of the chair. Mary
Heaton Vorse
The image that fiction presents is purged of the
distractions, confusions and accidents of ordinary life. Robert Penn Warren
There is no idea so stupid or hackneyed that a
sufficiently-talented writer can't get a good story out of it. Lawrence Watt-Evans
Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy,
monotonous, barren, boring. Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new,
marvelous, intoxicating. "Imaginative literature," therefore, is
either boring or immoral or a mixture of both. Simone Weil
The books we think we ought to read are poky, dull, and dry
The books that we would like to read we are ashamed to buy
The books that people talk about we never can recall
And the books that people give us, oh, they're the worst of
all.
Carolyn Wells
A story isn't about a moment in time, a story is about the
moment in time. W. D. Wetherell
No one can write decently who is distrustful of the reader's
intelligence or whose attitude is patronizing.
E. B. White
There is no satisfactory explanation of style, no infallible
guide to good writing, no assurance that a person who thinks clearly will be
able to write clearly, no key that unlocks the door, no inflexible rules by
which the young writer may steer his course. He will often find himself
steering by stars that are disturbingly in motion. E. B. White
A poet can survive everything but a misprint. Oscar Wilde
It is personalities not principles that move the age. Oscar Wilde
...I discovered that if I trusted my subconscious, or
imagination, whatever you want to call it, and if I made the characters as real
and honest as I could, then no matter how complex the pattern being woven, my
subconscious would find ways to tie it together -- often doing things far more
complicated and sophisticated than I could with brute conscious effort. I would
have ideas for 'nodes', as I think of them -- story or character details that
have lots of potential connections to other such nodes -- and even though I
didn't quite understand, I would plunk them in. Two hundred pages later,
everything would back-fit, and I'd say, "Ah, that's why I wrote
that." Tad Williams
If the sex scene doesn't make you want to do it - whatever
it is they're doing - it hasn't been written right. Sloan Wilson
I believe there are two ways of writing novels. One is mine,
making a sort of musical comedy without music and ignoring real life
altogether; the other is going right deep down into life and not caring a
damn. P. G. Wodehouse
I never want to see anyone, and I never want to go anywhere
or do anything. I just want to write. P.
G. Wodehouse
(After being asked about his writing technique) I just sit
at a typewriter and curse a bit. P. G. Wodehouse
You know what it means - you're a writer and you understand
it. It's not just 'the satisfaction of being published.' Great God! It's the
satisfaction of getting it out, or having that, so far as you're concerned,
gone through with it! That good or ill, for better or for worse, it's over,
done with, finished, out of your life forever and that, come what may, you can
at least, as far as this thing is concerned, get the merciful damned easement
of oblivion and forgetfulness. Tom Wolfe
Pay attention to the sound of words. Dave Wolverton
Characterization is an accident that flows out of action and
dialogue. Jack Woodford
I count it a high honor to belong to a profession in which
the good men write every paragraph, every sentence, every line, as lovingly as
any Addison or Steele, and do so in full regard that by tomorrow it will have
been burned, or used, if at all, to line a shelf. Alexander Woollcott
The more closely the author thinks of why he wrote, the more
he comes to regard his imagination as a kind of self-generating cement which
glued his facts together, and his emotions as a kind of dark and obscure
designer of those facts. Reluctantly, he comes to the conclusion that to
account for his book is to account for his life. Richard Wright
I'm writing a book. I've got the page numbers done. Stephen Wright
For me, writing [was] a question of survival...I could not
trust anyone, even my family. The atmosphere was so poisoned. People even in
your own family could turn you in. Gao
Xingjian (Referring to the Cultural Revolution)
Neither Christ nor Buddha nor Socrates wrote a book, for to
do so is to exchange life for a logical process. William Butler Yeats
It is my contention that a really great novel is made with a
knife and not a pen. A novelist must have the intestinal fortitude to cut out
even the most brilliant passage so long as it doesn't advance the story. Frank Yerby
Exercise the writing muscle every day, even if it is only a
letter, notes, a title list, a character sketch, a journal entry. Writers are
like dancers, like athletes. Without that exercise, the muscles seize up. Jane Yolen
A young musician plays scales in his room and only bores his
family. A beginning writer, on the other hand, sometimes has the misfortune of
getting into print.
Marguerite Yourcenar
Occasionally, there arises a writing situation where you see
an alternative to what you are doing, a mad, wild gamble of a way for handling
something, which may leave you looking stupid, ridiculous or brilliant -you
just don't know which. You can play it safe there, too, and proceed along the
route you'd mapped out for yourself. Or you can trust your personal demon who
delivered that crazy idea in the first place. Trust your demon. Roger Zelazny
One of my standard -- and fairly true -- responses to the
question as to how story ideas come to me is that story ideas only come to me
for short stories. With longer fiction, it is a character (or characters)
coming to visit, and I am then obliged to collaborate with him/her/it/them in
creating the story. Roger Zelazny
Writing is thinking on paper. William Zinsser