No harm’s done to history by making it something someone would want to read.”(The Course of Human Events, NEH Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities 2003)

Let’s unwrite these pages and replace them with our own words

No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader.

The quality which makes man want to write and be read is essentially a desire for self-exposure and masochism. Like one of those guys who has a compulsion to take his thing out and show...

You learn almost as much about a thinker from what he reads—in particular, what he likes and what he disdains—as from what he writes himself.

I’ve found myself moved by letters and diaries in archives as well as trashy, summer blockbusters. It’s possible to make a connection with any kind of writing – as long as the writing is good.

Spiritual growth and creativity are two sides of the same coin.

The great thing about writing fiction is that you can do whatever the fuck you want, go as far as you are willing to go, and laugh at the people who take it seriously.

You can write any time people will leave you alone and not interrupt you. Or rather you can if you will be ruthless enough about it. But the best writing is certainly when you are...

Against the disease of writing one must take special precautions, since it is a dangerous and contagious disease.

Exercise the writing muscle every day, even if it is only a letter, notes, a title list, a character sketch, a journal entry. Writers are like dancers, like athletes. Without that exercise, the muscles seize...

Vigorous writing is concise.

Storytellers are individuals who enjoy creating a holiday for the mind.

To write simply is as difficult as to be good.

Every writer in the history of the world has been afraid to put words on the page. But we only remember those who overcame that fear.

But what all these responses have in common is that they point to the decisive power of information and stories […]

Writing a novel is not merely going on a shopping expedition across the border to an unreal land: it is hours and years spent in the factories, the streets, the cathedrals of the imagination.

Q: Where and when do you do your writing? A: Any small room with no natural light will do. As for when, I have no particular schedules… afternoons are best, but I’m too lethargic for...

Every human being has hundreds of separate people living under his skin. The talent of a writer is his ability to give them their separate names, identities, personalities and have them relate to other characters...

Do you have an audience in mind when writing? (March 2010 Bookgeeks interview)In terms of story, the only audience I have in mind is me. I’m very much aware that I can’t please everyone when...

We all dream dreams of unity, of purity; we all dream that there’s an authoritative voice out there that will explain things, including ourselves. If it wasn’t for our longing for these things, I doubt...

Well, for instance, why does everything always have to be written from the point of view of a human being? Why not write from the point of view of a cat? Or a tree?

We are important and our lives are important, magnificent really, and their details are worthy to be recorded. This is how writers must think, this is how we must sit down with pen in hand....

When well told, a story captured the subtle movement of change. If a novel was a map of a country, a story was the bright silver pin that marked the crossroads.

We don’t know history. We only know what has been written about it.

From my boyhood I have had an intense and overwhelming conviction that my real vocation lay in the direction of literature. I have, however, had a most unaccountable difficulty in getting any responsible person to...

In my imagination, the Editor meditated in a mountain-cave, espoused the rules of grammar, and frowned upon speculative fiction.

140 karakter kali 10 twit per hari, kalikan lagi seminggu. Sudah berapa halaman naskah yang kau dapatkan, Duhai?

You can’t have good ideas unless you have lots of ideas.

True alchemy lies in this formula: ‘Your memory and your senses are but the nourishment of your creative impulse’.

A writer writes not because he is educated but because he is driven by the need to communicate. Behind the need to communicate is the need to share. Behind the need to share is the...

Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.

Those who can’t, and can’t teach, translate.(attrib: F.L. Vanderson)

He [Wordsworth] invited his readers to abandon their usual perspective and to consider for a time how the world might look through other eyes, to shuttle between the human and the natural perspective. Why might...

Each word was shaped with certainty, and I felt, more strongly than ever before in my life, that I had at last found my true path. I knew the story would change as I told...

Paper is more patient than man.

I write to give myself strength. I write to be the characters that I am not. I write to explore all the things I’m afraid of.

Not everything can stand the test of time, but a story can.

When I got up this morning the sea was full of sun pennies – and now it all seems to be covered in lemon scrim. Writers ought to live far inland or next to the...

If your wife locks you out of the house, you don’t have a problem with your door.

Miss Abigail, I want to be an author because writers know when a person is lonely. I mean, when Molly read me some books, those writers reached out and said, Look Gideon, we know about...

Freedom of the press is limited to those who own one.

The novel is perhaps the highest art form because it so closely resembles life: it is about human relationships. It’s technique, page by page, resembles our technique of living day by day–a way of relating.

History, writing, infect after a time a man’s sense of himself…

I have a huge and savage conscience that won’t let me get away with things.

As long as one person reads the bullshit I put on paper, and likes it, i’ll keep writing.

I learned to write nice as hell. Birds an’ stuff like that, too; not just word writin’. My ol’ man’ll be sore when he sees me whip out a bird in one stroke. Pa’s gonna...

Your understanding and interpretation of [a novel] is undoubtedly unique…and that is the real beauty of the relationship that joins readers, books and writers together in a literary trinity—a bookish triumvirate.

Reading feeds the soul, writing nourishes it!

The inkstand is full of ink, and the paper lies white and unspotted, in the round of light thrown by a candle. Puffs of darkness sweep into the corners, and keep rolling through the room...