quotes for writers
May. 22, 2013
Keats: “I was never afraid of failure”
John Keats’ defiant response to critics: “I was never afraid of failure; for I would sooner fail than not be among the greatest.”
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May. 9, 2013
“It’s always difficult”
Alice Munro: “I work slowly; it’s always difficult…”
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May. 9, 2013
“Each book should be a new beginning”
Hemingway: “Writing at its best is a lonely life…”
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Mar. 5, 2013
Henry James: The Art of Fiction
“The air of reality … seems to me to be the supreme virtue of a novel — the merit on which all its other merits … helplessly and submissively depend.”
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Mar. 4, 2013
Quote of the Day
Peter DeVries: “I write when I’m inspired, and I see to it that I’m inspired at nine o’clock every morning.”
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Feb. 25, 2013
Miserable people
“Writers are very often miserable people: some thrive on unhappiness, others don’t. But few are immune from feelings of deep and avid dissatisfaction. We write because we are constantly discontented with almost everything, and need to use words to rearrange it, all of it, and set the record straight.”
Tags: Philip Roth · quotes for writers
Feb. 6, 2013
Cory Doctorow: Writing in the Age of Distraction
“Don’t be ceremonious…. When the time is available, just put fingers to keyboard and write.”
Tags: Cory Doctorow · quotes for writers · writing links
Jan. 10, 2013
Three Questions
Ian McEwan answers Margaret Atwood’s three questions for writers: Who are you writing for? Why do you do it? And where does it come from?
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Jan. 1, 2013
Writing is frustration
Philip Roth: *Writing is frustration* (quote)
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Dec. 31, 2012
Write posthumously
Jeffrey Eugenides (quoting Hitchens): *A serious person should try to write posthumously,*
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Dec. 26, 2012
The desire to matter
*The desire to matter as much as we once did to our mother is at the broken heart of all narcissistic endeavour, whether it’s writing novels, tweeting or carrying the right kind of handbag….*
Tags: quotes for writers · writers block
Dec. 13, 2012
Orwell in torment
*It is now 16 years since my first book was published, & abt 21 years since I started publishing articles in the magazines. Throughout that time there has literally been not one day in which I did not feel that I was idling…* (quote)
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Nov. 16, 2012
Conrad: The sitting is all
Joseph Conrad: *I sit down religiously every morning, I sit down for eight hours every day — and the sitting down is all.” (quote)
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Nov. 5, 2012
Junot Diaz: You keep writing anyway
Junot Diaz: *In my view a writer is a writer because even when there is no hope, even when nothing you do shows any sign of promise, you keep writing anyway.*
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Nov. 5, 2012
Ian McEwan on the ideal length of a story
Ian McEwan: *I believe the novella is the perfect form of prose fiction.”
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Sep. 21, 2012
Zadie Smith’s Ten Rules for Writers
When still a child, make sure you read a lot of books. Spend more time doing this than anything else…
Tags: quotes for writers · Zadie Smith
Sep. 10, 2012
Tchaikovsky: Work without inspiration
Tchaikovsky: *There is no doubt that even the greatest musical geniuses have sometimes worked without inspiration….*
Tags: creativity · quotes for writers · Tchaikovsky
Sep. 7, 2012
Jeffrey Eugenides: Not the audience, the reader
Jeffrey Eugenides: “I think about the reader. I care about the reader. Not audience. Not readership. Just the reader. That one person, alone in a room, whose time I’m asking for. I want my books to be worth the reader’s time, and that’s why I don’t publish the books I’ve written that don’t meet this criterion, and why I don’t publish the books I do until they’re ready.”
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Aug. 29, 2012
Picasso: I am always doing what I cannot do
Picasso: I am always doing what I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.
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Jun. 7, 2012
Bradbury: Action is hope
“Action is hope. At the end of each day, when you’ve done your work, you lie there and think, Well, I’ll be damned, I did this today. It doesn’t matter how good it is, or how bad — you did it. At the end of the week you’ll have a certain amount of accumulation. At the end of a year, you look back and say, I’ll be damned, it’s been a good year.”
Tags: quotes for writers · Ray Bradbury