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Quote by Will Self

“Regard yourself as a small corporation of one. Take yourself off on team-building exercises (long walks). Hold a Christmas party every year at which you stand in the corner of your writing room, shouting very loudly to yourself while drinking a bottle of white wine. Then masturbate under the desk. The following day you will feel a deep and cohering sense of embarrassment.”

Quote by Will Self

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Will Self

Will Self is a British author known for his distinctive style and sharp wit. His works span across various genres including novels, non-fiction, short stories, and plays. Born on September 26, 1961, Self's writing often delves into the complexities of modern society and the darker aspects of human nature. more

“People like ourselves may see nothing wondrous in writing, but our anthropologists know how strange and magical it appears to a purely oral people - a conversation with no one and yet with everyone. What could be stranger than the silence one encounters when addressing a question to a text? What could be more metaphysically puzzling than addressing an unseen audience, as every writer of books must do? And correcting oneself because one knows that an unknown reader will disapprove or misunderstand?”

Source: Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business

“Several factors besides skill are more significant in professional writers than in most amateurs. One is love of the surface level of language: the sound of it; the taste of it on the tongue; what it can be made to do in virtuosic passages that exist only for their own sake, like cadenzas in baroque concerti. Writers in love with their tools are not unlike surgeons obsessed with their scalpels, or Arctic sled racers who sleep among their dogs even when they don't have to.”

Source: The Midnight Disease: The Drive to Write, Writer's Block, and the Creative Brain

“...But I don't think I'm the only person who is tired of books and movies full of paper-doll characters you don't care about, who have no self-respect and no respect for anybody or any institution....And I don't want to sound preachy or Victorian, but I'm tired of amorality in fiction and in real life. Immorality is a fascinating human dilemma that creates suspense for the readers and tension for the characters, but where is the tension in an amoral situation? When people have no personal code, nothing is threatening and nothing is meaningful.”

“If you write, good ideas must come welling up into you so that you have something to write. If good ideas do not come at once, or for a long time, do not be troubled at all. Wait for them. Put down little ideas no matter how insignificant they are. But do not feel, any more, guilty about idleness and solitude.”

Ifs Feels Writing Littles Long Ideas Matter Waiting Solitude Long Time Guilty Good Ideas Insignificant Idleness

Author:Brenda Ueland

“You may well ask me why...I took the time to write [books]. I can only reply that I do not know. There was no why about it. I had to: that was all.”

Knows Writing Wells May I Can Book Asks Ask Me

Author:George Bernard Shaw

“Writing can be a pretty desperate endeavor, because it is about some of our deepest needs: our need to be visible, to be heard, our need to make sense of our lives, to wake up and grow and belong. It is no wonder if we sometimes tend to take ourselves perhaps a bit too seriously.”

Ifs Needs Writing Sometimes Grows Bits Wonder Our Lives Heard Wake Up Make Sense Visible Desperate Endeavor

Book:Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

Source: Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

“Ideas come when we do not expect them, and not when we are brooding and searching at our desks. Yet ideas would certainly not come to mind had we not brooded at our desks and searched for answers with passionate devotion.”

Writing Mind Ideas Answers Passionate Devotion Desks Brooding

Book:From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology

Source: From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology

“A cardinal rule of writing is never interrupt yourself to explain something. If you must bring up an obscure topic, drop informative hints about it as you go along so that you don't end up with the entire explanation all in one place. This keeps you from skidding to a stop and sounding teacherish. Otherwise it's better to omit the obscure topic altogether, or as mothers might put it: if you can't say it interestingly, don't say it at all.”

Ifs Writing Ends Might Mother Explanation Obscure Topics Hints Cardinals Informative Cardinal Rules

Author:Florence King

“The nobility of our calling will always be rooted in two commitments difficult to observe: refusal to lie about what we know, and resistance to oppression.”

Knows Writing Two Lying Difficult Calling Commitment Resistance Oppression Rooted Nobility Refusal

Book:Speech of Acceptance Upon the Award of the Nobel Prize for Literature: Delivered in Stockholm on the Tenth of December, Nineteen Hundred and Fifty-seven. [Translated by Justin O'Brien

Source: Speech of Acceptance Upon the Award of the Nobel Prize for Literature: Delivered in Stockholm on the Tenth of December, Nineteen Hundred and Fifty-seven. [Translated by Justin O'Brien

“Read like mad. But try to do it analytically - which can be hard, because the better and more compelling a novel is, the less conscious you will be of its devices. It's worth trying to figure those devices out, however: they might come in useful in your own work.”

Writing Trying Hard Might Novel Figures Conscious Mad Devices Compelling

Author:Sarah Waters

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