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Writing Quotes

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Writing Quotes

“Write the best book you possibly can, then dedicate yourself to getting people to read it.”

People Writing Book

Author:J.A. Konrath

“I plot as I go. Many novelists write an outline that has almost as many pages as their ultimate book. Others knock out a brief synopsis... Do what is comfortable. If you have to plot out every move your characters make, so be it. Just make sure there is a plausible purpose behind their machinations. A good reader can smell a phony plot a block away.”

Ifs Writing Book Character Moving Purpose Behinds Reader Comfortable Pages Ultimate Smell Block Novelists Plot Outlines Phony Plausible Synopsis

Author:Clive Cussler

“I fell into the books, and left myself there for safekeeping.”

Writing Book Left

Author:Jeanette Winterson

“You can't know what a book is about until the very end. This is true of a book we're reading or writing.”

Knows Writing Book Ends Reading Reading Or Writing

Author:Lynda Barry

“The books that everybody admires are those that nobody reads.”

Writing Book Funny Reading Admire

Author:Anatole France

“You don't realize what a strain it is on the nerves to write or think-of-writing all day long, and to sleep full of nervous dreams, and to wake up not knowing who one is: this all stems from anxiety about finishing the book, about time 'growing short', etc., and the perpetual strain of invention.”

Source: Windblown World: The Journals of Jack Kerouac, 1947-1954

“If you are going to make a book end badly, it must end badly from the beginning.”

Ifs Writing Book Ends

Book:The Complete Works of Robert Louis Stevenson: Novels, Short Stories, Poems, Plays, Memoirs, Travel Sketches, Letters and Essays (Illustrated Edition): The Entire Opus of Scottish novelist, poet, essayist and travel writer, containing Treasure Island, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Kidnapped, Catriona and A Child's Garden of Verses

Source: The Complete Works of Robert Louis Stevenson: Novels, Short Stories, Poems, Plays, Memoirs, Travel Sketches, Letters and Essays (Illustrated Edition): The Entire Opus of Scottish novelist, poet, essayist and travel writer, containing Treasure Island, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Kidnapped, Catriona and A Child's Garden of Verses

“I keep one simple rule that I only move in one direction - I write the book straight through from beginning to end. By following time's arrow I keep myself sane.”

Writing Book Ends Moving Simple Following Sane Arrows One Direction

Author:Jonathan Lethem

“Usually it takes me about nine to 12 months to write a book.”

Writing Book Months Nine Take Me

Author:Jerry Spinelli

“Writing a book for me, I expect, is very similar to the experience of reading the book for my readers.”

Writing Book Reading Reader Writing A Book

Author:R. A. Salvatore

“It's hard for children's authors to be accepted when they try to write adult books. J.K. Rowling is the exception because people are so eager to read anything by her, but it took Judy Blume three or four tries before she had a success.”

People Writing Trying Children Book Hard Three Four Adults Accepted Exception

Author:R. L. Stine

“It may be important to write a book that doesn't come up to what I would like to have rather than to write no book at all.”

Writing May Important Book Come Up

Author:Sheri S. Tepper

“I got done writing Ports of Call and suddenly realized I have far too much material for the book.”

Writing Book Done Too Much Materials Port

Author:Jack Vance

“I don't really get hate mail, which surprises me, but people have better things to do than to write hate mail to somebody who writes a book about hating everything, I guess.”

People Writing Book Hate Surprise Things To Do Mail Surprise Me Better Things To Do Hate Mail

Author:Jhonen Vasquez

“I've always loved writing emotionally rich, character-driven novels that explore the way people fall in love and deal with life's triumphs and tragedies. I enjoy writing the contemporary and historical books equally, though perhaps 'enjoy' is the wrong word.”

People Way Writing Book Character Fall Enjoy Deals Novel Rich Tragedy Historical Falling In Love Driven Contemporary Triumph Wrong Words

Author:Susan Wiggs

“As a kid I wanted to write science fiction, and I was never without a book. Later I really got into being a scientist and never thought I'd be writing novels.”

Writing Book Kids Wanted Fiction Novel Scientist Science Fiction

Author:Daniel H. Wilson

“Every kind of book I've written has been written in a different way. There has not been any set time for writing, any set way, I haven't re-invented the process every time but I almost have.”

Way Writing Kind Has Beens Book Different Literature Process Written Havens Different Ways

Author:Irvine Welsh

“I think it's a very old and deep-seated double standard that holds that when a man writes about family and feelings, it's literature with a capital L, but when a woman considers the same topics, it's romance, or a beach book - in short, it's something unworthy of a serious critic's attention.”

Thinking Men Writing Book Feelings Romance Literature Attention Serious Standards Critics Beach Topics Unworthy About Family Double Standard

Author:Jennifer Weiner

“If you write chick lit, and if you're a New Yorker, and if your book becomes the topic of pop-culture fascination, the paper might make dismissive and ignorant mention of your book. If you write romance, forget about it. You'll be lucky if they spell your name right on the bestseller list.”

Ifs Writing Book Might Romance Culture Names Forget Lucky Paper Pops Lists Ignorant Spells Topics Lit Fascination Pop Culture Chicks New Yorkers

Author:Jennifer Weiner

“I don't write literary fiction - I write books that are entertaining, but are also, I hope, well-constructed and thoughtful and funny and have things to say about men and women and families and children and life in America today.”

Men Writing Wells Children Book Today America Fiction Men And Women Thoughtful Entertaining America Today

Author:Jennifer Weiner

“No one I know of has ever had this experience-where you had to sit and wait and wait for a DNA test to come back just so you can write the last page of the book.”

Knows Writing Book Lasts Waiting Pages Tests Dna

Author:Joseph Wambaugh

“A good writer cannot avoid having social consciousness. I don't mean this about small pieces of writing, but about a big book. If it's a big book, there has to be more than one undertow.”

Ifs Writing Mean Book Bigs Social Consciousness Pieces Good Writers Small Pieces Big Book Social Consciousness Undertow

Author:Marguerite Young

“God preserve us from writers who regurgitate what they have learnt from books! It is people's secrets we want to know - it is the natural history of the human heart that we have been trying to put down for a thousand years and everyone must and can leave their contribution.”

People Knows Want Writing Trying Years Humans Heart Has Beens Book Natural Secret Thousand Preserves Contribution Thousand Years Human Heart Natural History

Author:August Strindberg

“I think you will agree that I am alive in every part of this book; turn back twenty, thirty, one hundred pages - I am back there. That is why I hate the story; characters are not snakes that they must shed their skins on every page - there can only be one action: what a man is. When you have understood this, you will be through with novels.”

Thinking Men Writing Book Character Stories Action Hate Turns Novel Alive Pages Understood Hundred Skins I Hate Twenties Agree Thirty Shed Snakes I Am Alive

Author:Kenneth Patchen

“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

“...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.”

“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

“I think that's what turns young men and women into writers - the happiness you discover living in books.”

Thinking Men Writing Book Young Turns Men And Women Young Man

Author:Paul Auster

“It has long been a tradition among novel writers that a book must end by everybody getting just what they wanted, or if the conventional happy ending was impossible, then it must be a tragedy in which one or both should die. In real life very few of us get what we want, our tragedies don't kill us, but we go on living them year after year, carrying them with us like a scar on an old wound.”

Ifs Want Should Writing Years Long Book Real Ends Wanted Dies Novel Impossible Goes On Tradition Tragedy Wounds Real Life Scar Conventional Happy Endings Old Wounds

Author:Willa Cather

“The idea for each of the stories in this book came in a moment of belief and was written in a burst of faith, happiness, and optimism. Those positive feelings have their dark analogues, however, and the fear of failure is a long way from the worst of them. The worst - for me, at least - is the gnawing speculation that I may have already said everything that I have to say, and am now only listening to the steady quacking of my own voice because the silence when it stops is just too spooky.”

Source: Nightmares & Dreamscapes

“I'm afraid of coaching, of writer's classes, of writer's magazines, of books on how to write. They give me centipede trouble - you know the yarn about the centipede who was asked how he managed all his feet? He tried to answer, stopped to think about it, and was never able to walk another step.”

Thinking Knows Giving Writing Book Able Language Answers Walks Steps Class Trouble Feet Give Me Magazines Coaching Yarn Centipedes

Author:Robert A. Heinlein

“I'm crushed by the responsibility of writing a satirical book.”

Writing Book Responsibility Crushed Satirical

Author:Al Franken

“I don't for one second think about the possibility of censorship when I am writing a new book. I know I am a person who cares about kids and who cares about truth and I am guided by my own instincts, and trust them.”

Thinking Knows Writing Persons Book Care Kids My Own Possibility Instinct Censorship Who Cares New Books

Author:Lois Lowry

“I don't set out to transmit a message. I don't write with a political point of view. There are no religious overtones. Looking back at my books, I can say, 'Oh, yes, it is there.' But it's not in my mind when I write.”

Writing Mind I Can Book Political Religious Views Messages Point Of View Looking Back Transmit

Author:Lois Lowry

“I tend not to think about audience when I'm writing. Many people who read "The Giver" now have their own kids who are reading it. Even from the beginning, the book attracted an audience beyond a child audience.”

People Thinking Writing Children Book Kids Reading Audience Giver

Author:Lois Lowry

“I started to write in 2001. I wrote the books for the fun of it. It was an old idea I had had since the nineties.”

Writing Book Ideas Fun Old Ideas

Author:Steig Larsson

“I don't ever write with a particular audience in mind. I just write books that please me.”

Writing Mind Book Audience Particular Please Please Me

Author:William Landay

“You can write a great book and be ignored. Literary history is full of classics that were under-appreciated in their own time.”

Writing Book Ignored Appreciated Great Book

Author:William Landay

“I love writing books - I really do. If I could just quit everything and work on a book every day, I would love that most.”

Ifs Writing Book Quitting If I Could Writing A Book

Author:Donald Miller

“Write comic books if you love comic books so much that you want to write them. Don't write them like movies. Comics can do a lot of things that movies can't do, and vice versa.”

Ifs Want Writing Book Can Do Vices Comic Comic Book Vice Versa

Author:Grant Morrison

“I used to split my time between writing, music and painting. I would work on a book and then abandon it, start a band, do an album, quit music, then do a gallery show. Eventually I decided to give writing a serious shot.”

Giving Writing Book Shows Used Painting Serious Band Shots Decided Albums Quitting My Time Abandon Splits Gallery Writing Music

Author:Isaac Marion

“Well, I've been a big fan of comic books since I was a little kid. In fact, I used to write and draw my own comic books when I was on the old Lost in Space series.”

Writing Wells Littles Book Facts Bigs Kids Used Lost My Own Space Fans Draws Series Comic Comic Book Little Kid

Author:Bill Mumy

“I like the idea of trying to write a book in every genre.”

Writing Trying Book Ideas Genre

Author:China Mieville

“In every book I write, I try to name-check the most prominent influences, or the most prominent conscious influences.”

Writing Trying Book Names Influence Conscious Checks Prominent

Author:China Mieville

“Every book I write, the first thing I have to do is get into the voice, and the voice varies from book to book - that's part of what's interesting to me.”

Writing Firsts Book Voice Interesting Vary

Author:China Mieville

“Most of the people who write to me are really clever, really engaged. They just want to say that they have read my book and liked it.”

People Want Writing Book Clever Engaged Really Clever

Author:Denise Mina

“But I've been at writing long enough now to know that every three or four books I have to start a new direction.”

Knows Writing Long Book Enough Three Four New Directions

Author:Daniel Woodrell

“Books don't exist unless you read them. And it's a two way process - you write the book as you read it and you fill in the gaps. You discover it and you put the marks together and without you doing it they're just marks.”

Way Writing Two Book Together Process Mark Gaps Without You Two Ways

Author:Samuel West

“I used to be an editor and I was editing young adult series. I didn't really like the books that I was reading, so I decided that I would write a book about something I'd want to read if I was 16. It turned into a Cinderella story... I developed a proposal and the characters of 'Gossip Girl' for my job.”

Ifs Want Writing Book Character Stories Jobs Young Used Girl Reading Adults Decided Series Young Adult Used To Be Gossip Editors Editing Proposal Gossip Girl Cinderella Story

Author:Cecily von Ziegesar

“I wish that the adults who are 'in power' cared more about what their children read. Books are incredibly powerful when we are young - the books I read as a child have stayed with me my entire life - and yet, the people who write about books, for the most part, completely ignore children's literature.”

People Writing Children Book Young Literature Wish Powerful Adults Children's Literature

Author:Gabrielle Zevin