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.”

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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.”

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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….*

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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…

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Sep. 10, 2012

Tchaikovsky: Work without inspiration

Tchaikovsky: *There is no doubt that even the greatest musical geniuses have sometimes worked without inspiration….*

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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.”

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