You know you are a writer when characters inside your brain keep demanding, ‘This is my story! Now tell it or I will never leave you alone!

Why do I write? Out of fear. Out of fear that the memory of the people I write about might go lost. Out of fear that the memory of myself might get lost. Or even...

Never interrupt an author when he or she is ‘in the zone’, else you’ll understand the real meaning of ‘writer’s nib’.

I am grateful to the Lord for blessing my path as a writer.

Letters orchestrated into a song of words create the symphony of a novel.

Every word I write is another stroke that takes me to the shore of a completed book.

Introduction of deus ex machina is a tell-tale sign of sloppy plotting.

Predictions are uttered by prophets (free of charge); by clairvoyants (who usually charge a fee, and are therefore more honored in their day than prophets); and by futurologists (salaried). Prediction is the business of prophets,...

Why do I love writing YA? Because I get a chance to re-live my youth knowing all I know now…

Me to characters: talk to me people.

The only difference between writers and people who don’t write is that writers aren’t afraid to display their demons.

Yang bisa kita lakukan sebagai penulis hanyalah mencoba, mengerahkan usaha, menabur benih, dan menuai panen apa pun yang diberikan dengan penuh sukacita dan syukur.

The blank page, otherwise known as the vast playground of the writer’s imagination.

I think there are two types of writers, the architects and the gardeners. The architects plan everything ahead of time, like an architect building a house. They know how many rooms are going to be...

Writing with a biro is the emotional equivalent of giving your loved one a plastic rose on Valentine’s Day.

Writers leave a trail of magic everywhere they go.

Fiction is a careful combination of observation, inspiration, and imagination.

…ugly interlopers threaten to choke off your story, depriving it of much-needed nutrition, sunlight and water. Identify and cut those weeds – the life-sucking adverbs, the shade-killing descriptions that don’t move the story forward, the...

It is a wise writer who knows his own subconscious.

Plot comes from the mind but the characters come from the heart!

(…) deve-se evitar toda prolixidade e todo entrelaçamento de observações que não valem o esforço da leitura. (…) É sempre melhor deixar de lado algo bom do que incluir algo insignificante. (…) Sobretudo, não dizer...

If you see it in Strunk and White it’s so.

Once I was asked be a seatmate on a trans-Pacific flight….what instruction he should give his fifteen-year-old daughters, who wanted to be a writer. [I said], “Tell your daughter three things.” Tell her to read…Tell...

When a solid first draft of an original tale is complete…you feel as if you could do anything.

I admire the person who can write it right off. Mencken once said that a person who thinks clearly can write well. But I don’t think clearly–too many thoughts bump into one another. Trains of...

Putting pen to paper without first deciding the route and pace at which to scribe is like setting off on a bicycle without first checking the tyres.

My language is the common prostitute that I turn into a virgin.

Getting the first draft finished is like pushing a very dirty peanut across the floor with your nose.

Writer’s a lovers quarrel – encounters breathe the quill…

The first thing that distinguishes a writer is that he is most alive when alone.

For some reason, a lot of you reject what you hear and see in your heads. If you go too long ignoring it, it builds up and then you do all sorts of weird things....

If you live with dogs, you’ll never run out of things to write about.

Three words for a writer: Make me care.

I think the reason why I don’t read so much, is because as I have observed, whole books all boil down to a drop of essence. You can read a book full of ten thousand...

There is nothing harder to estimate than a writer’s time, nothing harder to keep track of. There are moments—moments of sustained creation—when his time is fairly valuable; and there are hours and hours when a...

I just slept for fifteen hours straight. Yes, writing a musical is THAT exhausting!

Most writers who are beginners, if they are honest with themselves, will admit that they are praying for a readership as they begin to write. But it should be the quality of the craft not...

Confront the page that taunts you with its whiteness. Face your enemy and fill it with words. You are bigger and stronger than a piece of paper.

In order to write the book you want to write, in the end you have to become the person you need to become to write that book.

Sooner or later every writer evolves his own definition of a story.Mine is: A reflection of life plus beginning and end (life seems not to have either) and a meaning.

Never be afraid to write what you believe. If the message speaks the truth, others will fear your words for you.

Passionate attraction to someone of the opposite sex will make a hero or a fool of a novelist each time.

Henry had written a novel because there was a hole in him that needed filling, a question that needed answering, a patch of canvas that needed painting—that blend of anxiety, curiosity and joy that is...

If I knew what I was thinking […] I would never have become a writer.

I’m in love with writing, but sometimes I swear it hates me.

The Bible should be taught in schools – in English, with all the other fiction.

Each night, I close my eyes and dream. In the morning, I open my eyes again, but the dreaming doesn’t stop.

Writing is what happens when the words in your head are overpowered by the words in your heart.

A veces tengo la impresión de que escribo por simple curiosidad intensa. Es que, al escribir, me entrego a las sorpresas más inesperadas. Es a la hora de escribir que muchas veces me vuelvo consciente...

Proper writing ink comes in a bottle, can be swirled like brandy in a glass, and smells like apple blossom after rain.