Now the writer, I think, has the chance to live more than other people in the presence of ... reality. It is… — Virginia Woolf Copy Share Image
Writing lets you step back and think through a problem. Even the angriest rant forces the writer to achieve a degree of… — Atul Gawande Copy Share Image
A novel is not a summary of its plot but a collection of instances, of luminous specific details that take us in… — Charles Baxter Copy Share Image
People ask me, 'Why are you still writing books?' Like I'm still only writing to make money and as soon as I… — Elmore Leonard Copy Share Image
The joy for me as a writer is that, despite the fact I spend most of my life on my own in… — Abi Morgan Copy Share Image
The fundamental purpose of a novel like Count Julian is to achieve the unity of object and means of representation, the fusion… — Juan Goytisolo Copy Share Image
And books are such an empowering way to give voice to some of these kids who aren't yet ready to tell their… — Lauren Myracle Copy Share Image
I find that time constraints actually make me more productive, and "real world" experiences provide a lot of inspiration to write. — Liza Campbell Copy Share Image
You can't really succeed with a novel anyway; they're too big. It's like city planning. You can't plan a perfect city because… — Gore Vidal Copy Share Image
When I was eight years old, I wrote a paragraph-long short story about a goat on my mother's hundred-pound, black-and-white-screen laptop. The… — Tea Obreht Copy Share Image
“What I've learned to do when I sit down to work on a shitty first draft is to quiet the voices in… — Anne Lamott Copy Share Image
A Heart So White is simply one of the best novels I know. I'm also thrilled by Javier Marías sentences, by how… — Garth Greenwell Copy Share Image
“I asked once, and the library assistant told me there were more than a hundred thousand books there, and more than sixty… — Geraldine Brooks Copy Share Image
“Mr. O'Donnell was at the library counter, performing the sort of grim rituals librarians perform with index cards and stumpy pencils and… — Hilary Thayer Hamann Copy Share Image
Mr. Pewter led them through to a library, filled with thousands of antiquarian books. 'Impressive, eh?' 'Very,' said Jack. 'How did you… — Jasper Fforde Copy Share Image
“(In reply to the question, 'Would you like some suggestions for a plot for your next book?') There are three problems with… — Patricia C. Wrede Copy Share Image
Sometimes I journal three pages, sometimes I journal thirty pages, but I'm writing all the time, and whatever's happening is happening in… — Nikki Sixx Copy Share Image
“What I like most about the stories I write is exploring other lives and professions. It's a way of having all the… — Katie Fforde Copy Share Image
“To become less and transmit more, to replenish energy with wisdom - some such hope, at this more than midpoint in my… — John Updike Copy Share Image
“The point of freewriting is to get past the voice inside your head that tells you your ideas aren't good enough, your… — M. Molly Backes Copy Share Image
A malefactor who atones for making your writing nonsense by permitting the compositor to make it unintelligible. — Ambrose Bierce Copy Share Image
I've been making notes of my life, but when it finally came time to write it, it took me back, and I… — Mayte Garcia Copy Share Image
“-to judge us all through the machine of the Commandant's monstrous fictions! As though they were the truth! As though history &… — Richard Flanagan Copy Share Image
There's nothing worse than sitting down to write a novel and saying, "Well, okay, I'm going to do something of high artistic… — Douglas Adams Copy Share Image
If I had a talent, it was for looking askew at everything, possibly more than my contemporaries. But I had to really… — David Bowie Copy Share Image
Whatever the style is, I want to have a sense that the writer is thinking, and really trying to get at something,… — Lynne Tillman Copy Share Image
“Write and create what you really feel; it's the only way you can convince your audience that you're worth delving into.” — Zack Copy Share Image
“Real reading is reflex action; the born reader reads as unconsciously as he breathes; and, to carry the analogy a degree farther,… — Edith Wharton Copy Share Image
The more circumspectly you delay writing down an idea, the more maturely developed it will be on surrendering itself. — Walter Benjamin Copy Share Image
My parents were keen for me to have the education they themselves never had. They weren't able to guide me towards particular… — Ian Mcewan Copy Share Image
Books have been my classroom and my confidant. Books have widened my horizons. Books have comforted me in my hardest times. Books… — Po Bronson Copy Share Image
Fiction keeps its audience by retaining the world as its subject matter. People like the world. Many people actually prefer it to… — Annie Dillard Copy Share Image
Being an editor doesn't make you a better writer - or vice versa. The worst thing any editor can do is be… — Joseph Kanon Copy Share Image
I love anything by Deb Caletti. She's my absolute favorite young adult author. I love Ally Carter as well. — Rebecca Serle Copy Share Image
I never thought I'd write one book, let alone three. I'm absolutely delighted and every night, thank the good lord for spell… — Peter Kay Copy Share Image
I really need so much time to really make headway on a novel that requires me to disappear from the world in… — Laura van den Berg Copy Share Image
“(M)ysteries in fiction are seldom as insoluble as those in life, as most writers can't resist the lure of omniscience.” — Dennis McFadden Copy Share Image
Literature exists at the same time in the modes of error and truth; it both betrays and obeys its own mode of… — Paul de Man Copy Share Image
When you get some free time, write. When you get some lazy time, plan. When you get down time, world build. When… — Ace Antonio Hall Copy Share Image
Whatever your favorite genre is, you can probably trace your love for it back to one single book that really moved you. — David Farland Copy Share Image
