The writer must wade into life as into the sea, but only up to the navel.

Treece quite seriously divided the world into writers, who led life as a conscious effort, and people, and people who didn’t; sometimes he preferred writers and sometimes he preferred people.

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.

In Ruth’s view, they looked ‘like a couple’ because they seemed to possess some terrible secret between them – they appeared stricken with remorse when they saw her. Only a novelist could ever imagine such...

Lewis Carroll. He was an odd one. Real name was Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. Completely denied having anything to do with the Alice books. Daft as a brush. You’d have liked him!

I was always aware that Jack loved women not only for their bodies but for the stories that came into being as they interacted with him–they were part of his “road,” the infinite range of...

I’m more influenced by my own interests than anyone else’s. Writers have to entertain themselves, or they can’t entertain anyone else.

Don’t be indifferent about any random idea that occurs to you, because each and every idea is for a particular purpose. it may not be beneficial to you, but can be what others are craving...

Whatever happened to me in my life, happened to me as a writer of plays. I’d fall in love, or fall in lust. And at the height of my passion, I would think, ‘So this...

Your page stands against you and says to you that you are a thief.

…people quote proverbs without realizing they’re really in awe of the authority of their truth and the power of their expression…

a purveyor of insipid wet-dreams.

Even the best cook can’t make chicken soup out of his own feet. There aren’t so terribly many ingredients in anyone’s life, less meat than there is on a sparrow. The average person could come...

Socially interacting with a storyteller can be a frustrating challenge because a portion of her awareness is constantly sorting through the details of a developing book. And while you may successfully engage in a meaningful...

The good writers touch life often. The mediocre ones run a quick hand over her. The bad ones rape her and leave her for the flies.

Writers like teeth are divided into incisors and grinders.

Much has been made about the death of the novel and the end of literature as it’s seen to be assailed by technology, by the web, by the many and varied new forms of entertainment...

It is kind of ridiculous that a poet is expected to live in the real world.

Others may write from the head, but he writes from the heart, and the heart will always understand him.

The ear is the only true writer and the only true reader. I know people who read without hearing the sentence sounds and they were the fastest readers. Eye readers we call them. They get...

Writing is a solitary business. It’s just you and your characters and a blank page you need to fill.

Most inspirational writers were born as driftwood and will say they have been beaten against every shoreline during their life. We understand storms. We understand drowning. We understand being devalued. We understand being stranded alone...

The purpose of a writer is to keep civilization from destroying itself.

Deserted libraries hold the shades of writers who worked within, and are haunted by their absence.

He is a writer. He makes the rest of them nervous.

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

My view on writers? We all have the same shovels, but never dig in the same places or to the exact same depth

A writer who can’t use his firsthand experience must turn to secondhand experience, which can lead to thirdhand clichés.

Someone asked me, ‘How do you write a book?’ I said, ‘I live with a pen in one hand.

While art thrives on the blazing colours of scandal, literature blossoms on the dark soil of tragedy.

Acha alama katika dunia baada ya kuondoka.

It’s hard to be a dreamer sometimes. I’m tired.

I’m turning into an old man. I own four pairs of oxfords, my stories get a little long winded, and my neighbors play their music too loud.

Just because we’re fictional characters doesn’t mean you can pick us up and move us anywhere you want.–the people of Lake Woebegon

If you happen to pass by 84 Charing Cross Road, kiss it for me? I owe it so much.

At the most basic level, I appreciate writers who have something to say.

And people turn to internet with the hope that in this virtual world, where real identity need not be disclosed, they will find someone before whom they could be their true self,without any pretensions and...

I know that no reader ever asks a question. A writer must force his favors upon his readers.

No writing is wasted. Did you know that sourdough from San Francisco is leavened partly by a bacteria called lactobacillus sanfrancisensis? It is native to the soil there, and does not do well elsewhere. But...

Some writers take to drink, others take to audiences.

Poetry creates the myth, the prose writer draws its portrait.

A lot of writers, probably because they’re sensitive, which makes them want to be writers, have fears about their masculinity, so they overcompensate by having an interest in boxing and tough-guy things.

It’s not given even to the greatest writers to tell someone else’s story.

It must take a lot of self-discipline,’ she said.’Oh, I don’t know. I don’t have much.’ He felt himself about to say again, and unable to resist saying, that ‘Dumas, I think it was Dumas,...

A writer leads a hyphenated-life with words

I understand that postmodern literature probably means people like DeLillo, The Fiction Collective, but I don’t get it that those writers are really influenced by postmodern theorists.

99% of natural poets discovered their talents through love letters.

Writers often have the cleanest windows, floors, fridges and toilets, the most up-to-date filing system or the best record for returning calls or e-mails because, in the moment, just about any task seems more palatable...

Have tea, might write,” Laura returned.

I am the penny whistle of American literature.