You know the look: genius gone to pot, and ready to join the Communist Party

You see, I believe that you cannot be taught to ‘write.’ You can be taught grammar and punctuation, but you cannot be taught to be a writer. That has to come from within.

I do not love men: I love what devours them.

Big writers become a kind of shared climate.

I’m going to be a person who writes stories.I never told mom and dad how much I loved them.I wanna be someone who can tell a lot of people how much I love them.

I don’t do math.

I have always noticed that these artists and writers are very unbalanced

You were silly like us.

A writer who’s afraid to express their opinions is not a writer – they’re just a person with a pen.

Writers should be read, but neither seen nor heard.

Contemporary writers annoyed him, he found their worlds insular, their style too self-conscious and ironic. Theirs was not a literature that belonged to him.

i didn’t call myself a writer until everyone else did. i knew it was real then.

Art requires a delicate adjustment of the outer and inner worlds in such a way that, without changing their nature, they can be seen through each other.

I craved a form of naive realism. I paid special attention, I craned my readerly neck whenever a London street I knew was mentioned, or a style of frock, a real public person, even a...

I must kill some memories,the heavy ones first and aftermake righteous of my un-even soul.

A skillful literary artist has constructed a tale. If wise, he has not fashioned his thoughts to accommodate his incidents; but having conceived, with deliberate care, a certain unique or single effect to be wrought...

It isn’t dying I’m afraid of, it isn’t that at all; I know what it is to die, I’ve died already. It is the endless obliteration, the knowledge that there will never be anything else....

There was a day when writers actually read,” he grumbles. “They could quote Keats and Socrates. Now anyone with a keyboard and a fifth-grade education can call themselves a writer.

I want to be a man of letters. All 26 of them.

Writer’s block is just another name for fear.

There’s something with the physical size of America… American writers can write about America and it can still feel like a foreign country.

I think television scripts have become really intriguing and well-done. And writers have stopped drawing any actual line between film and television they used to never cross.

Strong people write bad stories.

Dive again and again into the river of uncertainty. Create in the dark, only then can you recognize the light.

If I remember correctly writers usually find some excuse for their books, although why one should excuse oneself for having such a quiet & peaceful occupation I really don’t know. Military people never seem to...

Let others pride themselves about how many pages they have written; I’d rather boast about the ones I’ve read.

All that writers can do is keep trying to say what is deepest in their hearts.

Everything in art depends on execution: the story of a louse can be as beautiful as the story of Alexander. You must write according to your feelings, be sure those feelings are true, and let...

Maybe Laura’s real problem came in admitting this: there was nothing new under the sun. To write a story would be, somehow deep down, to embrace her limits, to admit that, indeed, she would someday...

I find that is the best way to write during emotional scenes…put yourself and your emotions in every single word.-Nina Jean Slack

Folding the laundry, completing another project at work, or watching television for the next hour doesn’t build your writing muscles. It only leaves them flabby.

An unedited manuscript is a first draft of story; but is not a finished product. Too many writers study the craft of writing but do not acquire the skills of an editor.

Rich will be my life if I can keep my memories full and brimming, and record them on clear-eyed mornings while I set joyously to work setting pen to holy craft.

I will be very careful the next time I fall in love, she told herself. Also, she had made a promise to herself that she intended on keeping. She was never going to go out...

The writer’s only responsibility is to his art. He will be completely ruthless if he is a good one. He has a dream. It anguishes him so much he must get rid of it. He...

Writers remember everything…especially the hurts. Strip a writer to the buff, point to the scars, and he’ll tell you the story of each small one. From the big ones you get novels. A little talent...

i writebecauseit is the only wayi can reach you.

People approach writers, assuming we pull a perfect text out of our nose each time (well spelled). Spelling is the least of it.

Many existing top 20 Scottish writers have flourished in part because of good turns done by institutions, arts community, libraries and bookshops.

I waited for the seasons of love to pass from this cold winter to the summer heat I dreamed of.

He’d heard that writers spent all day in their dressing gowns drinking champagne. This is, of course, absolutely true.

A man may be ‘dated’ in the sense that the forms, the set-up, the paraphernalia, whereby he expresses the matter of permanent interest, are those of a particular age. In that sense the greatest writers...

The writer does not dare dream of giving the best of his individuality. No, he must never express his anger. The vacillating demands of mediocrity must be satisfied. Amuse the people, be their clown, give...

Letting go looks different for everyone, I think. Sometimes it’s as simple as waking up one day and deciding not to let your past rule you. Other times it’s a process; slow moving and painful,...

If words come alive on the page, the writer succeeds in connecting to the reader.

Dutton, the home of Winnie the Pooh, would find a second identity as a home for gay fiction.

I added ‘writers’ to my list of people not to trust. They make everything up.

That’s why I’m a writer.

That moment you realize you are doing the right thing for the wrong reasons and the wrong thing for the right reasons.

Live inside your stories, yes, but do not hide behind them.