Best Fiction Writers Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings Page 4

“The work never matches the dream of perfection the artist has to start with.”

Writing Dream Artist Perfection Fiction Writing Writers And Writing Fiction Writers Novel Writing Writing Fiction Writing By Writers Creativity And Writing

Author:William Faulkner

“Begin with an individual, and before you know it you find that you have created a type; begin with a type, and you find that you have created - nothing.”

Knows Writing Individual Type Writing Advice Writers And Writing Fiction Writers Book Writing Writing Fiction Writing By Writers Creativity And Writing Famous Writers Writing From Famous Authors

Author:F. Scott Fitzgerald

“Anecdotes don't make good stories. Generally I dig down underneath them so far that the story that finally comes out is not what people thought their anecdotes were about.”

People Writing Stories Good Story Good Writing Good Writers Fiction Writing Writers And Writing Fiction Writers Writing Fiction Writing By Writers Anecdotes Story Writing Writing Stories Creativity And Writing Story Writers

Author:Alice Munro

“Rejection slips, or form letters, however tactfully phrased, are lacerations of the soul, if not quite inventions of the devil-but there is no way around them.”

Ifs Way Writing Soul Form Devil Letters Invention Rejection Slips Fiction Writing Fiction Writers

Author:Isaac Asimov

“Fiction is about stuff that's screwed up.”

Writing Stuff Fiction Fiction Writing Writers And Writing Fiction Writers Screwed Up Writing By Writers Creativity And Writing

Author:Nancy Kress

“If science fiction is the mythology of modern technology, then its myth is tragic.”

Ifs Writing Fiction Technology Modern Science Fiction Myth Mythology Tragic Fiction Writing Fiction Writers Modern Technology

Book:Dancing at the Edge of the World: Thoughts on Words, Women, Places

Source: Dancing at the Edge of the World: Thoughts on Words, Women, Places

“Everybody walks past a thousand story ideas every day. The good writers are the ones who see five or six of them. Most people don't see any.”

“If you write one story, it may be bad; if you write a hundred, you have the odds in your favor.”

Ifs Writing May Stories Hundred Favors Odds Fiction Writing Writers And Writing Fiction Writers Novel Writing Writing Fiction Writing By Writers Story Writing Writing Stories Creativity And Writing Story Writers Bad Writing

Author:Edgar Rice Burroughs

“I don't think it is possible to give tips for finding one's voice; it's one of those things for which there aren't really any tricks or shortcuts, or even any advice that necessarily translates from writer to writer. All I can tell you is to write as much as possible.”

Thinking Giving Writing I Can Voice Advice Findings Tricks Translate Fiction Writers Shortcuts

Author:Poppy Z. Brite

“Writing is turning one's worst moments into money.”

Writing Moments Worst Fiction Writing Writers And Writing Fiction Writers Writing Fiction Writing By Writers Creativity And Writing Worst Moments Writing Short Short Writing

Author:J. P. Donleavy

“If you start with a bang, you won't end with a whimper.”

Ifs Writing Ends Bangs Fiction Writing Fiction Writers

Author:T. S. Eliot

“Easy reading is damn hard writing.”

“The best time to plan a book is while you're doing the dishes.”

“The road to hell is paved with works-in-progress.”

“The road to hell is paved with adverbs.”

“I don't think any religion makes any sense and I think people who are into that are really getting duped, and I don't think Judaism makes any more sense than Christianity, and I don't think Christianity makes any more sense than Scientology. But here's a guy, L. Ron Hubbard, who told all his friends, 'Look, I'm gonna start a religion, 'cause I can't make any money as a science fiction writer.' I mean, he admitted that publicly! At least with Jesus Christ, you can't go talk to the guy.”

People Thinking Looks Mean I Can Guy Religion Jesus Causes Christ Fiction Christianity Atheism Jesus Christ Science Fiction Judaism Fiction Writers Scientology Ron Hubbard L Ron Hubbard

Author:Howard Stern

“If you're not failing every now and again, it's a sign you're not doing anything very innovative.”

“The beginning of human knowledge is through the senses, and the fiction writer begins where the human perception begins. He appeals through the senses, and you cannot appeal through the senses with abstractions.”

Humans Fiction Perception Senses Crafts Appeals Abstraction Fiction Writers Human Knowledge

Book:Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose

Source: Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose

“The fiction writer has to engage in a continual examination of conscience. He has to be aware of the freak in himself.”

Fiction Conscience Freak Examination Fiction Writers

Author:Flannery O'Connor

“The reason 99% of all stories written are not bought by editors is very simple. Editors never buy manuscripts that are left on the closet shelf at home.”

Writing Reason Stories Home Left Simple Written Editors Shelves Closets Manuscripts Fiction Writing Fiction Writers Reading And Writing Writers Reading Writing And Reading Reading Writing Story Writers

Author:John Y. Campbell

“Find the key emotion; this may be all you need know to find your short story.”

Knows Needs Writing May Stories Emotion Keys Short Story Fiction Writing Fiction Writers Reading And Writing Beautiful Writing Story Writing Story Writers Writing Short Stories Short Writing

Author:F. Scott Fitzgerald

“The greatest rules of dramatic writing are conflict, conflict, conflict.”

Writing Conflict Dramatic Fiction Writing Fiction Writers Dramatic Writing

Author:James Frey

“The writer's genetic inheritance and her or his experiences shape the writer into a unique individual, and it is this uniqueness that is the writer's only stuff for sale.”

Writing Individual Stuff Shapes Unique Uniqueness Inheritance Fiction Writing Fiction Writers Unique Individuals

Author:James Gunn

“In a good play, everyone is in the right.”

Writing Play Fiction Writing Fiction Writers

Author:Christian Friedrich Hebbel

“The test of any good fiction is that you should care something for the characters; the good to succeed, the bad to fail. The trouble with most fiction is that you want them all to land in hell, together, as quickly as possible.”

Want Should Writing Character Care Together Fiction Hell Failing Trouble Land Succeed Tests Good Writing Good Writers Fiction Writers Bad Writing

Author:Mark Twain

“Of course, the fact that Dostoevsky can tell a juicy story isn't enough to make him great. If it were, Judith Krantz and John Grisham would be great fiction writers, and by any but the most commercial standards they're not even very good.”

Ifs Writing Enough Facts Stories Would Be Courses Fiction Standards Very Good Good Writing Fiction Writers Juicy

Author:David Foster Wallace

“If writers were good businessmen, they'd have too much sense to be writers.”

Ifs Writing Too Much Businessman Fiction Writers Good Business

Author:Irvin S. Cobb

“If you're a fiction writer, though, I can tell you how to let people talk through you. Listen. Just be quiet, and listen. Let the character talk. Don't censor, don't control. Listen, and write.”

People Ifs Writing I Can Character Fiction Quiet Fiction Writers

Book:Steering the Craft: A Twenty-First-Century Guide to Sailing the Sea of Story

Source: Steering the Craft: A Twenty-First-Century Guide to Sailing the Sea of Story

“The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”

“Sit down and put down everything that comes into your head and then you're a writer. But an author is one who can judge his own stuff's worth, without pity, and destroy most of it.”

Writing Stuff Judging Down And Pity Great Writers Writers And Writing Fiction Writers Great Writing Art Of Writing Great Author Editing And Writing

Author:Sidonie Gabrielle Colette

“A fiction writer is never entirely alone. Her characters are constantly whispering in her ear.”

Character Fiction Ears Whispering Fiction Writers

Author:Cinda Williams Chima

“Wesley Stace has always been the only genuinely gifted fiction writer who also happens to be a rock star, but Wonderkid is the book he was born to write. And if you prefer your novels brazen, poignant and hilarious, as I do, you were born to read it. Like a great show, this will stay with you long after the last cymbal crash and power strum.”

Ifs Writing Long Book Shows Happens Lasts Stars Born Fiction Novel Rocks Crash Gifted Rock Star Fiction Writers Poignant Brazen Cymbals

Author:Sam Lipsyte

“The process of writing fiction is totally unconscious. It comes from what you are learning, as you live, from within. For me, all writing is a process of discovery. We are looking for the meaning of life. No matter where you are, there are conflicts and dramas everywhere. It is the process of what it means to be a human being; how you react and are reacted upon, these inward and outer pressures. If you are writing with a direct cause in mind, you are writing propaganda. It's fatal for a fiction writer.”

“That's what fiction writers do: create characters and do terrible things to them for the entertainment of others. If they feel guilty enough, they write happy endings.”

Ifs Feels Writing Enough Character Fiction Terrible Entertainment Guilty Terrible Things Happy Endings Fiction Writers

Author:Garry Trudeau

“Plotting is like sex. Plotting is about desire and satisfaction, anticipation and release. You have to arouse your reader's desire to know what happens, to unravel the mystery, to see good triumph. You have to sustain it, keep it warm, feed it, just a little bit, not too much at a time, as your story goes on. That's called suspense. It can bring desire to a frenzy, in which case you are in a good position to bring off a wonderful climax.”

“Books aren't written - they're rewritten. Including your own. It is one of the hardest things to accept, especially after the seventh rewrite hasn't quite done it.”

Writing Book Done Literature Accepting Written Including Hardest Hardest Thing Fiction Writing Fiction Writers Book Writing Rewriting

Author:Michael Crichton

“It is popular to believe that in order to see clearly one must believe nothing. This may work well enough if you are observing cells under a microscope. It will not work if you are writing fiction. For the fiction writer, to believe nothing is to see nothing.”

Ifs Writing Believe Wells May Enough Order Fiction Cells Observing Fiction Writers Writing Fiction Microscopes

Author:Flannery O'Connor

“The emerging picture from such studies is that ten thousand hours of practice is required to achieve the level of mastery associated with being a world-class expert - in anything. In study after study, of composers, basketball players, fiction writers, ice skaters, concert pianists, chess players, master criminals, and what have you, this number comes up again and again…no one has yet found a case in which true world-class expertise was accomplished in less time. It seems that it takes the brain this long to assimilate all that it needs to know to achieve true mastery.”

“I think the one thing that's changed over time is that I've come to realise, as a fiction writer, the fact that I don't think it will work out, doesn't mean that it actually won't.”

Thinking Mean Facts Fiction One Thing Changed Work Out Realising Fiction Writers

Author:Jennifer Egan

“I came to the conclusion that I am not a fiction writer.”

Fiction Conclusion Fiction Writers

Author:Tim LaHaye

“New fiction writers are a special breed in my estimation, and I never dreamed that so many people would be interested, but I remember being led by God”

People Would Be Remember Fiction Special Fiction Writers Estimation

Author:Tim LaHaye

“There are no such things as happy endings. Never. They're totally manufactured by fiction writers who choose to end the story on a high point.”

Ends Stories Fiction Happy Endings Fiction Writers High Points

Author:Peter David

“I wanted nothing less than to be a fiction writer when I was a kid. If you had told me I would be an artist or novelist when I grew up, I would have laughed in your face”

Ifs Would Be Kids Wanted Faces Artist Fiction Grew Grew Up Novelists Your Face Laughed Fiction Writers

Author:Caleb Carr

“Me, I have a science fiction writer's conviction that the damn robot is supposed to speak human, not the other way around.”

Way Humans Speak Fiction Science Fiction Conviction Damn Robots Fiction Writers

Author:Spider Robinson

“There's a fine line between imagination and reality. An inventor dreams something up, and pretty soon, it's there on the table before him. A science-fiction writer envisions another world, and then some space probe finds it. If you believe in something strongly enough, I think you can make it happen.”

“The only people who have the long view are some scientists and some science fiction writers.”

People Long Science Views Fiction Scientist Science Fiction Fiction Writers Bedtime

Author:Sheri S. Tepper

“Science fiction writers, I am sorry to say, really do not know anything. We can't talk about science, because our knowledge of it is limited and unofficial, and usually our fiction is dreadful.”

Knows Writing Fiction Science Fiction Sorry Fiction Writers I Am Sorry Am Sorry

Book:I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon

Source: I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon

“Everybody walks past a thousand story ideas every day.”

“Writing is the hardest work in the world not involving heavy lifting.”

World Writing Heavy Hardest Lifting Involving Fiction Writing Writers And Writing Fiction Writers Writing By Writers Heavy Lifting

Author:Pete Hamill

“Arnošt Lustig is one of the leading contemporary Czech fiction writers, and certainly the most important Jewish writer of Bohemia to have survived the Holocaust.”

Important Fiction Contemporary Holocaust Survived Fiction Writers Czech Bohemia

Author:Josef Skvorecky

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Fiction Writers Quotes