Writers often torture themselves trying to get the words right. Sometimes you must lower your expectations and just finish it.

Write drunk; edit sober.

Not everyone is fodder for books,” said Rosalind.

It’s basically an act of faith, hoping that a small idea will unspool into a bigger whole. Sometimes, in fact often, it doesn’t and it just runs out of steam. The hope for me is...

Writing starts with living.—Rumors of Water: Thoughts on Creativity & Writing

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

In quickness is truth. The more swiftly you write, the more honest you are. In hesitation is thought. In delay comes the effort for a style, instead of leaping upon truth which is the only...

Whenever I listen to an artist or an art historian I’m struck by how much they see and how much they know–and how much I don’t.Good art writing should therefore do at least two things....

I honestly think in order to be a writer, you have to learn to be reverent. If not, why are you writing? Why are you here? Let’s think of reverence as awe, as presence in...

My best writing happens when I’m fighting to produce it.

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

Question marks are shaped like hooks for a reason: they will hook the reader and drag them deeper into the story

It takes courage to violate expectations, but sometimes the reward is a new level of success.

You’re writing someone’s ‘future’ favorite book.

. . . But then you will want to put that {publication} behind you right away. You will want to recover the obscurity you swim best through. You’ve got eternal youth there. You’ll never be...

The highest duty of the writer is to remain true to himself and let the chips fall where they may. In serving his vision of the truth the artist best serves his nation.

Why is it that women are the only ones who will write perfect men into fiction? It’s strange. If a man portrayed his fictional men as archangels, the feminists would throw back their heads and...

…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...

A direct relationship exists between the caliber of the writing you read and the caliber of the writing you make.

If you want to write, you can. Fear stops most people from writing, not lack of talent, whatever that is. Who am I? What right have I to speak? Who will listen to me if...

teka muna”. Dahil pag lumagpas ang maikling panahong yon, kahit mag-umpog ka ng ulo sa pader mahihirapan ka nang maghabol.

Avoid stock expressions (like the plague, as William Safire used to say) and repetitions. Don’t say that as a boy your grandmother used to read to you, unless at that stage of her life she...

Concentrate on sharpening your memory and peeling your sensibility. Cut every page you write by at least one third. Stop constructing those piffling little similes of yours. Work out what it is you want to...

I can tell you that the writing of a book, no matter how deeply, profoundly personal-if it is literature, if you have attended to the formidable task of illumination the human heart in conflict with...

Bastam poucas palavras para escrever uma história e apenas uma pessoa para a ler.

Writing is more than just a method to tell stories. It’s a way to find healing, and to healing others.

I never presume to give advice on writing. I think the best way to learn to write is to read booksand stories by bood writers. It’s a hard thing to preach about. As Thelonious Monk...

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

…my writing is a wild mustang – more thunderous than a lightning storm -and all my skill which I call art, is devoted to simply staying on…

Be true to the writer within you; tell the story you’re dying to tell in exactly the way you wish to tell it, and don’t trust anyone who tries to sway you otherwise.

intellectual” snobbery. It’s a hushed but ugly truth that people are made to feel not worthy to be among a certain set – didn’t attend the right school or don’t have the requisite abbreviations to...

Often when he was teaching me to write in Greek, the Fox would say, “Child, to say the very thing you really mean, the whole of it, nothing more or less or other than what...

Clarity trumps all rules.

Plot joined the expedition unwooed, as a necessary companion. It was not the scout. The scout was a certain mood. I followed that mood, and let the shape of the story flow from that.

While the goal of a book is to create a positive emotional experience for the reader, the goal of the opening is to set the stage, to pull the reader in.

Prefer the familiar word to the far-fetched. Prefer the concrete word to the abstract. Prefer the single word to the circumlocution. Prefer the short word to the long. Prefer the Saxon word to the Romance.

If you have a machine with three or four parts, you can shake them up in a box and it’s still pretty clear what’s there. If you have a machine with 10,000 parts and you...

Life is a book. There are many pages to be written.

about clichés. Avoid them like the plague.

We will need to find people who will provide a safe writing space for us, where criticism comes late and love and delight come early.—from Rumors of Water: Thoughts on Creativity & Writing

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

Its weird how i dream things that are worth writing.Its like God is writing them into my mind while i am sleeping and the moment i woke up i know i have to write what...

All writing is difficult. The most you can hope for is a day when it goes reasonably easily. Plumbers don’t get plumber’s block, and doctors don’t get doctor’s block; why should writers be the only...

If a writer starts worring about what he or she has left out or forgotten, they might not be able to write even a single line.

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

Your writing should be filled with simple complexities and complex simplicities. Because that is life.

Storytellers think they’re writing for the audience. They’re writing, in a way, to hurt the audience.

On Writing: “A multitude of improbabilities can be forgiven as long as enough plausibility has been established.

You were meant to write this book.

I am grateful to all my readers; you inspired me to keep writing.