quotes for writers
Dec. 8, 2011
How to Start
*The only possible way to begin a book is to tell oneself that its eventual failure is guaranteed — but survivable.* Alain de Botton
Tags: Alain de Botton · quotes for writers
May. 4, 2011
Orhan Pamuk: “A writer is…”
Orhan Pamuk: “A writer is someone who … turns inward.”
Tags: Orhan Pamuk · quotes for writers
Apr. 29, 2011
Write because you feel like writing
“All this advice from senior writers to establish a discipline — always to get down a thousand words a day whatever one’s mood — I find an absurdly puritanical and impractical approach. Write, if you must, because you feel like writing, never because you ought to write.” – John Fowles (quote)
Tags: John Fowles · quotes for writers
Mar. 7, 2011
Reading vs. Writing
Sometimes I think a writer should make up his mind whether he’s going to be a writer or a reader. There isn’t time for both. — Jessamyn West (via The Paris Review). That is exactly how I feel: can’t read when I’m writing, can’t write when I’m reading.
Tags: quotes for writers · writing life
Feb. 7, 2011
What to Write
“Write about the thing that frightens you the most.”
Tags: quotes for writers
Jan. 13, 2011
Malamud: “work in uncertainty”
A quote from Bernard Malamud: *Teach yourself to work in uncertainty…*
Tags: Bernard Malamud · quotes for writers
Jan. 4, 2011
Fuck you, Melville!
Junot Diaz coins a new motto for slow writers everywhere, like me.
Tags: Junot Diaz · quotes for writers
Dec. 23, 2010
Fitzgerald: What people are ashamed of
“What people are ashamed of usually makes a good story.” — F. Scott Fitzgerald
Dec. 16, 2010
Salman Rushdie: writing out of “your best self”
In a video interview at Big Think, Salman Rushdie explains that “when you write, you … write out of what you think of as your best self.”
Tags: quotes for writers · Salman Rushdie
Oct. 27, 2010
Updike: Words that enter in silence and intimacy
“I think ‘taste’ is a social concept and not an artistic one. I’m willing to show good taste, if I can, in somebody else’s living room, but our reading life is too short for a writer to be in any way polite. Since his words enter into another’s brain in silence and intimacy, he should [...]
Tags: John Updike · quotes for writers
