The first inkling of this notion had come to him the Christmas before, at his daughter’s place in Vermont. On Christmas Eve, as indifferent evening took hold in the blue squares of the windows, he...

To begin impatiently is the worst mistake a writer can make

I believe it’s incredibly important to write against [racial] stereotypes. If we give in and make sure that all black women characters are asexual, gentle, and kind we wind up with another set of stereotypes.

I don’t know where to start,” one [writing student] will wail. Start with your childhood, I tell them. Plug your nose and jump in, and write down all your memories as truthfully as you can....

In the world of your story, your outline is like the Ten Commandments. Unfortunately, your characters are all Atheists.

Concentrate on what you want to say to yourself and your friends. Follow your inner moonlight; don’t hide the madness. You say what you want to say when you don’t care who’s listening.

Every few weeks she would shut herself up in her room, put on her scribbling suit, and fall into a vortex, as she expressed it, writing away at her novel with all her heart and...

Go where the pain is, go where the pleasure is.

Critics sometimes appear to be addressing themselves to works other than those I remember writing.

Words are a puzzle; put them together the right way and you get something beautiful.

I find that writing is as magical as the genre I write in. When the story comes alive and takes over, it’s truly a journey to another world.

some moments are nice, some arenicer, some are even worthwritingabout.

I celebrate myself, I paint and dance and sing myself, and what I assume you will assume, for every atom as of me as good belongs to dreamy You. I am a song. I am...

Writing is not a hobby. Collecting stamps or coins is a hobby. Writing is a calling.

without deep pain ,pen does not bleed to write.

What no wife of a writer understands is that a writer is working when he’s staring out the window.

I see there is a good deal of grandiloquence in my book — my friends and foes have told me. I think it must be true, for there is a good deal of grandiloquence in...

If you feel that strongly about something, you have an obligation to try and change my mind.

A writer is very much like the captain on a star ship facing the unknown. When you face the blank page and you have no idea where you’re going. It can be terrifying, but it...

I am a drinker with writing problems.

The best stories come from deep within us and are of us. Either our inner child comes out to play and makes all things possible, or we mold our characters and events from our own...

Most of the time it may seem like I’m staring into nothingness, but there’s a whole world playing out in my head.

A successful book is not made of what is in it, but what is left out of it.

I dont know why, but I feel some pain when she knew I was writing a lot of writing for her and when she suddenly wrote one, it’s not for me. You can’t go on...

I felt after I finished Slaughterhouse-Five that I didn’t have to write at all anymore if I didn’t want to. It was the end of some sort of career. I don’t know why, exactly. I...

I write about romance and passion to savour love twice, in the moment and in retrospect.

that makes it damn nearly impossible for me to say anything. I’ve lost the knack of making sense. I speak gibberish to the civilized world, and it replies in kind.

One day, I decided I was going to write books forever.

Why does one begin to write? Because she feels misunderstood, I guess. Because it never comes out clearly enough when she tries to speak. Because she wants to rephrase the world, to take it in...

A runner’s high doesn’t come from thinking about the end result, only of the moment, one step, one breath, one heartbeat at a time. It’s the same for a writer …

Writing is like painting. You sketch it, add colour, add depth and detail. You give it a final layer and then hang it proudly.

And grade every simile and metaphor from one star to five, and remove any threes or below. It hurts when you operate, but afterwards you feel much better.

I wrote a fair amount of poetry in college. It was really, really bad. I mean, bad. And that’s how I found out—by doing it.

What “inspires” my books? Really I don’t know. Does anyone know where exactly an idea comes from? With me all fiction begins with pictures in my head. But where the pictures come from I couldn’t...

Stories may well be lies, but they are good lies that say true things, and which can sometimes pay the rent.

Every novel is an attempt to capture time, to weave something solid out of air. The author knows it is an impossible task – that is why he keeps on trying.

If you like fantasy and you want to be the next Tolkien, don’t read big Tolkienesque fantasies — Tolkien didn’t read big Tolkienesque fantasies, he read books on Finnish philology. Go and read outside of...

Writing is both mask and unveiling.

Maybe you’re one of those people who writes poems, but rarely reads them. Let me put this as delicately as I can: If you don’t read, your writing is going to suck.

Characters are the lifeblood of anygood book.

Writing is so much more productive when it is set on fire, for then and only then can you feel the passion spewing forth from the writer’s heart.

When we are in love, we are convinced nobody else will do. But as time goes, others do do, and often do do, much much better.

I am hard at work on the second draft … Second draft is really a misnomer as there are a gazillion revisions, large and small, that go into the writing of a book.

Artists strive for perfection. But what they often fail to see is that the beauty, the humanity, lies within the flaws.

You should give it to Max, Liesel. See if you can leave it on the bedside table, like all the other things.” Liesel watched him as if he’d gone insane. “How, though?” Lightly, he tapped...

IT’S NOT THAT ANYONE CAN BE A HERO, BUT THAT A HERO CAN COME FROM ANYWHERE. BUT THE KEY IS THAT THEY HAVE TO HAVE SOMETHING INSIDE THEM. A SPARK. A SENSE OF MORALITY. A...

If she was going to write a novel, she felt defeated before she began, because someone might be coming along to pick it apart, looking for symbols like The Conch or The Whale, which seemed...

If the desire to write is not accompanied by actual writing, then the desire must be not to write.

The people I’ve known who wanted to become writers, knowing what it meant, did become writers.

Just as writing can become calligraphy when it’s creatively, skillfully, and consciously performed, so can all other activities become art. In this case, we are reflecting upon life itself as an artistic statement—the art of...