You can only write what you know if you’ve lived, otherwise, you’ll just be writing words.

When I am dead, I hope it may be said, ‘His sins were scarlet, but his books were read.

All is a-swarm with commentaries: of authors there is a dearth.

You can quiz me on Petrarch, Medea, Shakespeare or Dante, I know them all, and I’m sorry, but they’ve all gone wrong. Dumb glorified men, writing words about love and life as if they knew....

But the real life of a writer resides in showing up at the keyboard every day, with the necessary patience and mercy, and making the best decisions you can on behalf of your people. It’s...

But I did not want to be good. I wanted to be a writer.

Our job in this life is not to shape ourselves into some ideal we imagine we ought to be, but to find out who we already are and become it.

Prison always has been a good place for writers, killing, as it does, the twin demons of mobility and diversion

If you want to write a fantasy story with Norse gods, sentient robots, and telepathic dinosaurs, you can do just that. Want to throw in a vampire and a lesbian unicorn while you’re at it?...

Writing is turning life’s worst moments into money.

Genetic code is a divine writing.

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.

Write in recollection and amazement for yourself.

Have you thought of an ending?””Yes, several, and all are dark and unpleasant.””Oh, that won’t do! Books ought to have good endings. How would this do: and they all settled down and lived together happily...

I love when I finish reading a chapter that I wrote and my cheeks hurt from smiling and all I can utter is, ‘Wow.’

To be a great writer, you must be nomadic. I’d recommend the hunter/gatherer lifestyle for anybody serious about being nonsensical.

I’m writing an unauthorized autobiography.

Write down the thoughts of the moment. Those that come unsought for are commonly the most valuable.

Real writers are those who want to write, need to write, have to write.

I want to write a poem about “Truth,” “Honor,” “Dignity,” and whether the toilet paper should roll over or under when you pull on it.

In LA, you think you’re making something up, but it’s making you up.

I am writing something very simple that will change you and change the world.

Build a good name. Keep your name clean. Don’t make compromises. Don’t worry about making a bunch of money or being successful. Be concerned with doing good work. And make the right choices and protect...

Writing is a disease of the mind, which is expressed through a pen.

People add color to their story because they think it happened in black and white.

A letter is a soul, so faithful an echo of the speaking voice that to the sensitive it is among the richest treasures of love.

People should know better than to be an ass in front of writers. We immortalize things. Lots of things. And we take liberties with character descriptions.

Act as if you’re a writer. Sit down and begin. Act as if you might just create something beautiful, and by beautiful I mean something authentic and universal. Don’t wait for anybody to tell you...

I’ve always believed writing ads is the second most profitable form of writing. The first is ransom notes…

So when the blue smoke of brittle leaves was in the air and the wind blew the wet laundry stiff on the line I decided to come back home.

It was full of wounding remarks rather brilliantly said, perhaps said for the sheer virtuosity of giving pain neatly. Each of its phrases found its way through the eyes of the Marquesa, then, carefully wrapped...

Like a father with his daughter, the writist plays peek-a-boo with the world. His aim is to evoke that sweet smile, the one that says “i remember you. I am glad you are here again”.

…required for good fiction: character, conflict, change through time. And if you’re really blessed, you get resolution. But life doesn’t usually work out that way.

sunset and evening star hunching and bending sleeping and slipping virus pneumonia coughing and crying hope in the small things heaven looks brighter aching and falling earth is still darkness slip into sleeping sleepings of...

A quote is a story, suspended in a sentence and treasured through time.

The author must keep his mouth shut when his work starts to speak.

Some things are hard to write about. After something happens to you, you go to write it down, and either you over dramatize it, or underplay it, exaggerate the wrong parts or ignore the important...

So you went from one reader to two readers?” you’d be absolutely correct. And after I had congratulated you on your keen guess, I’d thank you for being 50% of my reading base.

Read a lot. But read as a writer, to see how other writers are doing it. And make your knowledge of literature in English as deep and broad as you can. In workshops, writers are...

he said.

Es kommt nicht darauf an, wie eine Geschichte anfängt. Auch nicht darauf, wie sie aufhört. Sondern auf das, was dazwischen passiert.

I have been writing for about eleven years now. I went from elfish to elephantish, and in another eleven years, I hope to be Elford.

There’s nothing more important than literary merit, and that’s why I not only created an award—the Julius Caesar Author of the Year Award—but I nominated myself as the first recipient. You can’t always wait for...

How had it come about that these particular designs were chosen as our letters? Who decreed what sound would accompany each shape? And how was it decided the manner they would come together to form...

Liquid quotes are more drinkable. Make your writing as fluid as possible, so people can chug it in one tasty gulp.

Why did I write? Because I found life unsatisfactory.

When you’re all alone out there, on the end of the typewriter, with each new story a new appraisal by the world of whether you can still get it up or not, arrogance and self-esteem...

But this lump does not absolve me, because I got it through heedlessness, not though courage. I run my tongue over my lip and what do I do? I write. But bad literature brings no...

That was enough dialogue for a few pages – he had to get into some fast, red-hot action.There weren’t any more hitches now. The story flowed like a torrent. The margin bell chimed almost staccato,...

I am really Chloe Anthony Wofford. That’s who I am. I have been writing under this other person’s name. I write some things now as Chloe Wofford, private things. I regret having called myself Toni...