I love writing poetry because it’s pretty. I love writing pretty.

I wisely started with a map.

When I finally find that one willing agent, I’ll have found my prize in the Cracker Jack box.

Out of the millions who write, only very few manage to create an impact.

You have a great deal of yourself on the line, writing— your vanity is at stake. You discover a tricky thing about fiction writing; a certain amount of vanity is necessary to be able to...

Who is better off? The one who writes to revel in the voluptuousness of the life that surrounds them? Or the one who writes to escape the tediousness of that which awaits them outside? Whose...

Good writers don’t moralize, nor do they preach, but they do create longing for the true and the beautiful, and that is why you must write with Christ at the center of your reason for...

If there is no mystery, for the artist, to solve inside of his art, then there’s no point in it. . . . for me, every act of art is the act of solving a...

When I work, I’m just translating the world around me in what seems to be straightforward terms. For my readers, this is sometimes a vision that’s not familiar. But I’m not trying to manipulate reality....

a true piece of writing is a dangerous thing. It can change your life.

Don’t you wish you had a job like mine? All you have to do is think up a certain number of words! Plus, you can repeat words! And they don’t even have to be true!

Menjadi penulis adalah sebuah perjalanan panjang, yang tidak selalu diisi oleh hal-hal yang menyenangkan. Akan selalu ada kritik, akan selalu ada komentar negatif, akan selalu ada kesalahan. Yang terpenting adalah kita belajar dari kesalahan-kesalahan tersebut...

I can’t allow what we learned in English composition to disrupt the sound and rhythm of the narrative.

Who are your friends? Do they believe in you? Or do they stunt your growth with ridicule and disbelief? If the latter, you haven’t friends. Go find some.

If you hear voices, you’re a lunatic. If you write down what they say, you’re an author.

Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depth of your heart; confess to yourself you would have to die if you were forbidden...

Inspiration doesn’t always come in chronological order.

Maybe being oneself is an acquired taste. For a writer it’s a big deal to bow–or kneel or get knocked down–to the fact that you are going to write your own books and not somebody...

[On writing:] “There’s a great quote by Julius Irving that went, ‘Being a professional is doing the things you love to do, on the days you don’t feel like doing them.'”(One On 1, interview with...

Fairy tales are rife with transformation — from beast to handsome prince, from dirty scullery maid to well-dressed princess. It is perhaps no coincidence that nature in the Cinderella stories facilitates transformation, for nature itself...

My life will be the best illustration of all my work.

And yet sometimes it seems to me I am there, among the incriminated scenes, tottering under the attributes peculiar to the lords of creation … Yes, more than once I almost took myself for the...

Let me tell you I’m dying.” Well of course I am. So are you.

I surround myself with books when I write, thus surrounding myself with writers… only they don’t critique me and then get up for coffee.

I’ll write the first sentence in English and the second sentence will be nonsense translated to Russian, to make the ultimate non sequitur.

How the excitement comes upon me to tell it all! In the quest of writing, the heart can speed up with anticipation–as it does, indeed, during the chase itself of whales. I can swear it,...

The sign said don’t do it, so naturally I did it. Signs are always saying stuff in a silent way. Writing is a way to say something in a silent way.

The greatest part of a writer’s time is spent in reading, in order to write: a man will turn over half a library to make one book.

He thinks he’s a writer. He couldn’t write the alphabet, even if you spotted him the first 25 letters.

What had happened was this. When still young, I had gotten the idea from somewhere that I might be able to write… Maybe the deadly notion came from liking to read so much. Maybe I...

A pen is like a switchblade you can actually write with—and pull off a successful mugging with.

These are old words, old stories and we are not here to blindly repeat them. They are not law. They are power, nourishment. There is a river of voices coming out of the past, resonating...

Writing simply means no dependent clauses, no dangling things, no flashbacks, and keeping the subject near the predicate. We throw in as many fresh words we can get away with. Simple, short sentences don’t always...

I’ll be writing as long as I can hold a pen in my curled, crimped arthritic hands and then I’ll dictate it, if it comes to that. They’ll have to pry my pen out of...

Writing a novel is like going a great distance to take a small shit.

What model reader did I want as i was writing? An accomplice, to be sure, one who would play my game.

Marriage can be made to work if both the partners can see beyond themselves and understand the limitations,needs and abilities of the other person and are willing to embrace the positive and negative aspects of...

When I write, I don’t translate for white readers…. Dostoevski wrote for a Russian audience, but we’re able to read him. If I’m specific, and I don’t overexplain, then anyone can overhear me.

I shall live badly if I do not write, and I shall write badly if I do not live.

The road to hell is paved with adverbs.

If you treat your characters like people, they’ll reward you by being fully developed individuals.

If you write books, you go on one page at a time. We turn from all we know and all we fear. We study catalogues, watch football games, choose Sprint over AT&T. We count the...

The poet or the revolutionary is there to articulate the necessity, but until the people themselves apprehend it, nothing can happen … Perhaps it can’t be done without the poet, but it certainly can’t be...

I often said that writers are of two types.There is the architect, which is one type. The architect, as if designing a building, lays out the entire novel at a time. He knows how many...

What about reality, you ask? Well, as far as I’m concerned, reality can go take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut. I’ve never held much of a brief for reality, at least in my...

Using my nipples as bait, I went fishing for compliments. I got a few bites, but nothing to write about in Field & Stream.

Discipline and constant work are the whetstones upon which the dull knife of talent is honed until it becomes sharp enough, hopefully, to cut through even the toughest meat and gristle.

I have eavesdropped with impunity on the lives of people who do not exist. I have peeped shamelessly into hearts and bathroom closets. I have leaned over shoulders to follow the movements of quills as...

Throw up into your typewriter every morning. Clean up every noon.

Tell the story that’s been growing in your heart, the characters you can’t keep out of your head, the tale story that speaks to you, that pops into your head during your daily commute, that...