character,” but all it amounts to is that the writers are enjoying themselves writing lies and the readers are enjoying themselves reading lies. In fact, there is no such thing as character, something fixed and...

Two things put me in the spirit to give. One is that I have come to think of everyone with whom I come into contast as a patient in the emergency room. I see a...

The surest path to success is to learn to have a healthy relationship with failure. If we aren’t failing, then we aren’t doing anything interesting.

A writer paradoxically seeks the truth and tells lies every step of the way. It’s a lie if you make something up. But you make it up in the name of the truth, and then...

There are certain common privileges of a writer, the benefit whereof Ihope there will be no reason to doubt; particularly, that where I am notunderstood, it shall be concluded that something very useful and profoundis...

In the example of the navigator, no writing was essential to draw the meaning of observing the object at a distance from the ship. In the real theobservation has been noted and that is enough...

Writing is not a matter of time, but a matter or of space. If you don’t keep space in your head for writing, you won’t write even if you have the time.

Write when drunk. Edit when sober. Market it with the persistence of a drug peddler.

At the level of high culture with which this book is concerned, active bigotry is probably fairly rare. It is also hardly ever necessary, since the social context is so far from neutral. To act...

I tried to think outside the box but couldn’t open the lid.

The ancient commission of the writer has not changed. He is charged with exposing our many grievous faults and failures, with dredging up to the light our dark and dangerous dreams for the purpose of...

the writing of somemenis like a vast bridgethat carries youoverthe many thingsthat claw and tear.The Wine of Forever

Military people never seem to apologize for killing each other yet novelists feel ashamed for writing some nice inert paper book that is not certain to be read by anybody.

Tonight, I decided to take a stroll down to my local liquor store. Maybe I’ll find a refreshment to wash down this full moon. I hate showing up & the clerk fucking knows my name,...

She said that in writing anything, you must be perfectly honest.

In working-class France, when an apprentice got hurt, or when he got tired, the experienced workers said “It is the trade entering his body.

If you end your story, it’s a static work of art, a finite circle. But if you don’t, it belongs to anyone’s imagination. It stays alive forever.

Everybody is talented because everybody who is human has something to express.

I write to create a sky where the moon can touch the sun and not get burned.

If you do not breathe through writing, if you do not cry out in writing, or sing in writing, then don’t write, because our culture has no use for it.

I never reread what I’ve written. I’m far too afraid to feel ashamed of what I’ve done.

The best time for planning a book is while you’re doing the dishes.

Write what you know.

Today is your wright-time. Anything worth writing will be, or has been written already. A great story chooses its writer lest no wright should boast. Just write! If you don’t, you will come right in...

I think I succeeded as a writer because I did not come out of an English department. I used to write in the chemistry department. And I wrote some good stuff. If I had been...

I am the perfect version of me.

Then you should say what you mean,” the March Hare went on. “I do,” Alice hastily replied; “at least–at least I mean what I say–that’s the same thing, you know.” “Not the same thing a...

The audience– the book’s actual cast– quickly realized what had happened. The reason the movie dropped everything that made the novel real was because there was no way the parents who ran the studio would...

Science fiction is a dialogue, a tennis match, in which the Idea is volleyed from one side of the net to the other. Ridiculous to say that someone ‘stole’ an idea: no, no, a thousand...

Os poetas vão ficar no desemprego, em breve, muito em breve.Os algoritmos sem erro, perfeitos de pesadelo, escreverão melhor.

There is probably no hell for authors in the next world–they suffer so much from critics and publishers in this one.

It has been well said that an author who expects results from a first novel is in a position similar to that of a man who drops a rose petal down the Grand Canyon of...

At the evident risk of seeming ridiculous, I want to begin by saying that I have tried for much of my life to write as if I was composing my sentences to be read posthumously....

Most science fiction seemed to be written for people who already liked science fiction; I wanted to write stories for anyone, anywhere, living at any time in the history of the world.

First, I do not sit down at my desk to put into verse something that is already clear in my mind. If it were clear in my mind, I should have no incentive or need...

Being in the mood to write, like being in the mood to make love, is a luxury that isn’t necessary in a long-term relationship. Just as the first caress can lead to a change of...

Sometimes, when it’s going badly, she wonders if what she believes to be a love of the written word is really just a fetish for stationery. The true writer, the born writer, will scribble words...

I can’t protect you from the stars, but I can tell you stories that may help at night when they are staring at you.

But there is no doubt that to attempt a novel of ideas is to give oneself a handicap: the parochialism of our culture is intense. For instance, decade after decade bright young men and women...

The arts especially address the idea of aesthetic experience. An aesthetic experience is one in which your senses are operating at their peak; when you’re present in the current moment; when you’re resonating with the...

Write to your fear.

Tapping While Peeling, Back These Masks Stained With Stars…This Ashtrays My Heart, Colored In Filters Sucked Dry From The High, The Lipsticked & Famous, The Lovers The Haters, The Bent Or Those Who Live In...

The novel is a formidable mass, and it is so amorphous – no mountain in it to climb, no Parnassus or Helicon, not even a Pisgah. It is most distinctly one of the moister areas...

We are all too fixed on wrecking ourselves rather than bettering ourselves.

I spent a long time writing in obscurity. You’ll spend a long time writing in obscurity.

I am the sum of my past experience.Some people have got a lot to answer for.

Hold your pen and spare your voice.

My pen shall heal, not hurt.

dumb down” the plot or simplify words. When someone tells me he thought The Serpent’s Ring was easy to read, I know I succeeded in my storytelling.

…it’s not the stories – it’s the pain and the joy and the people who stay with you long after the stories are told …