No writing is wasted. Did you know that sourdough from San Francisco is leavened partly by a bacteria called lactobacillus sanfrancisensis? It is native to the soil there, and does not do well elsewhere. But...

James was sixteen, Cam seventeen, perhaps. She had looked round for someone who was not there, for Mrs. Ramsay, presumably. But there was only kind Mrs. Beckwith turning over her sketches under the lamp. Then,...

Your only responsibility as a writer is to be true to the story that has chosen you as its writer.

Writing is a solitary business. It’s just you and your characters and a blank page you need to fill.

Writing novels is the hardest thing I’ve ever done, including digging irrigation ditches.

You don’t know what it is to stay a whole day with your head in your hands trying to squeeze your unfortunate brain so as to find a word.

A folktale without a moral is merely a whimsy.

Books have a vital place in our culture. They are the source of ideas, of stories that engage and stretch the imagination and most importantly, inspire.

The writer in her went silent and hid when her revealing words were wide-spread read.

They like it here. There’s a poet, a couple of novelists, an opera librettist, an essay writer . . . . They don’t usually make much trouble.

To become successful, one must put themselves in the paths of giants!

When I die I hope it may be said:’Her suffering was black, but her books were read’.

There is beauty in the art, and a story in the words! spk

Where do you think my new novel is? In the waste basket. I can see myself that it’s no good on earth, and when a loving author realizes this, what would be the judgment of...

What you keep alive is what you truly care about, no matter how many times you die in the process.

I write description in longhand because that’s hardest for me and you’re closer to the paper when you work by hand, but I use the typewriter for dialogue because people speak like a typewriter works.

I held out my book. It was precious to me, as were all the things I’d written; even where I despised their inadequacy there was not one I would disown. Each tore its way from...

It can be hard to write a skillfully entertaining fiction, but a great book wants to be more, and wants more from us.

The planet you inhabit is a single plane of infinite dimensions, stretched like a guitar string, and standing before you like a concubine waiting for your command.

A writer’s promise is like a tiger’s smile

We do not write because we want to; we write because we have to.

If you were waiting for a sign that you’re meant to be a writer…THIS IS IT.

I am an architect of words; there is no limit to the number of ‘stories’ I can create!

Writing is a delicious agony.

Tell the truth through whichever veil comes to hand – but tell it. Resign yourself to the lifelong sadness that comes from never ­being satisfied.

Industry in art is a necessity—not a virtue—and any evidence of the same, in the production, is a blemish, not a quality; a proof, not of achievement, but of absolutely insufficient work, for work alone...

The self-addressed stamped envelope. The representation of everything that was wrong with the old publishing industry.

Pages and pages and pages with words all over the pages. My goodness, what fun. What fun to write whatever words occur.

Draw the art you want to see, start the business you want to run, play the music you want to hear, write the books you want to read, build the products you want to use...

The hardest thing about being a writer is convincing your wife that lying on the sofa is work.

It turns out that the distance from head to hand, from wafting butterfly to entomological specimen, is achieved through regular, disciplined practice. What begins as something like a dream will in fact stay a dream...

The act of putting pen to paper encourages pause for thought, this in turn makes us think more deeply about life, which helps us regain our equilibrium.

To be an artist means never to avert one’s eyes.

Nobody reads a book to get to the middle.

I wanted not the momentary suspense but the whole world to which it belonged.

To be a decent writer you must have both empathy and imagination. While these attributes aid your art, they can plague your soul. You don’t simply suffer your own sadness, experience your own longing and...

murder your darlings

Great writers wield their words like a weapon; a double-edged sword to strike their readers with truth where they least expect it. -Matthew D. Forgenti

Writing saved me from the sin and inconvenience of violence.

I said I want my eggs scrambled not destroyed.”At the explosion of such a sequence from our green young lips, we’d rashly scribble it on the wall of our apartment with a filthy wax pencil,...

A place that proves if you get enough talented people in a room, one or two are bound to offer some helpful advice. Kind if like monkeys with typewriters.

The discipline of creation, be it to paint, compose, write, is an effort towards wholeness.

Fiction is true. It doesn’t have to factual to be true.

I am developing new coping mechanisms for lost words and lost negatives, as here for instance: compensate by describing the episode instead. When something is lost, redirect energy, follow the derivé, the chance and flow...

A blank piece of paper and a pen or a pencil is always all ears.

The impulse to write things down is a peculiarly compulsive one, inexplicable to those who do not share it, useful only accidentally, only secondarily, in the way that any compulsion tries to justify itself. I...

The society to which we belong seems to be dying or is already dead. I don’t mean to sound dramatic, but clearly the dark side is rising. Things could not have been more odd and...

In such troubled times, we must remember the value writers have—the value of inventing new language to keep pace with the rapidly transforming world around us.

Why do I keep evading my work? Is it because I’m afraid of being confronted by my lack of abilities?

When writing goes painfully, when it’s hideously difficult, and one feels real despair (ah, the despair, silly as it is, is real!)–then naturally one ought to continue with the work; it would be cowardly to...