I think most writers can't really think about their work without a kind of revulsion. And I think that's probably why we… — Paul Auster Copy Share Image
Writing makes you feel that there is a reason to go on living. If I couldn't write, I would stop breathing. — Paul Auster Copy Share Image
Novels are fictions and therefore they tell lies, but through those lies every novelist attempts to tell the truth about the world. — Paul Auster Copy Share Image
I do not repeat conversations that I can't remember. And it's something that irritates me a great deal, because I think most… — Paul Auster Copy Share Image
I've always written by hand. Mostly with a fountain pen, but sometimes with a pencil - especially for corrections. — Paul Auster Copy Share Image
When I am writing, even though it's hard and I do struggle often, I am happier than when I'm not writing. I… — Paul Auster Copy Share Image
Writing is, after all, a gesture towards other people, giving something to others. And so it's not a completely hermetic exercise. It's… — Paul Auster Copy Share Image
Each book I've done somehow finds its own unique form, a specific way it has to be written, and once I find… — Paul Auster Copy Share Image
Don't be a writer, it's a terrible way to live your life, there's nothing to be gained from it but poverty and… — Paul Auster Copy Share Image
Becoming a writer is not a 'career decision' like becoming a doctor or a policeman. You don't choose it so much as… — Paul Auster Copy Share Image
Reading, at the deepest level, is a physical experience. Most people are not attuned to this, most people don't learn how to… — Paul Auster Copy Share Image
“So it goes as I work my way down the page, and each cluster of marks is a word, and each word… — Paul Auster Copy Share Image
I really, truly believe that writing comes out of the body; of course, the mind is working as well, but it's a… — Paul Auster Copy Share Image
The book that convinced me I wanted to be a writer was 'Crime and Punishment'. I put the thing down after reading… — Paul Auster Copy Share Image
With a computer, you make your changes on the screen and then you print out a clean copy. With a typewriter, you… — Paul Auster Copy Share Image
I use things, I steal things from my life when I want to, when I need to, or when it seems appropriate.… — Paul Auster Copy Share Image
I wrote Report from the Interior was that after I finished Winter Journal, I took a pause, and I realized there was… — Paul Auster Copy Share Image
I don't know why I write. If I knew the answer, I probably wouldn't have to. But it is a compulsion. You… — Paul Auster Copy Share Image
I've written books that have taken me fifteen years, from first sentence to last, and some that only take three or four… — Paul Auster Copy Share Image
Nobody asks you to do this. The world out there is not panting after another novelist. We choose it. — Paul Auster Copy Share Image
Reading was my escape and my comfort, my consolation, my stimulant of choice: reading for the pure pleasure of it, for the… — Paul Auster Copy Share Image
I'm not a boy-writer, I've never been. I wanted to be a boy-writer when I was young, and I think that held… — Paul Auster Copy Share Image
Those of us who can remember our childhoods will recall how ardently we relished the moment of the bedtime story, when our… — Paul Auster Copy Share Image
I write the paragraph, then I'm crossing out, changing words, trying to improve it. When it seems more or less OK, then… — Paul Auster Copy Share Image
In fact, writing, especially writing autobiographical works, and this is actually the fourth time I've done it, each time I've done it… — Paul Auster Copy Share Image
While I was writing poems, I would often divert myself by reading detective novels, I liked them. And there was a period… — Paul Auster Copy Share Image
There's a difference between doing memoir and writing a novel. If I had put the story of the boy killing my dog… — Paul Auster Copy Share Image
When I write, the story is always uppermost in my mind, and I feel that everything must be sacrificed to it. All… — Paul Auster Copy Share Image
I thought, "Well, I'm writing about early childhood, so maybe it would make sense to write about late childhood as well, early… — Paul Auster Copy Share Image
I feel that the act of writing, in and of itself, is a tool towards probing that which you wouldn't without that… — Paul Auster Copy Share Image
If I could write directly on a typewriter or a computer, I would do it. But keyboards have always intimidated me. I've… — Paul Auster Copy Share Image
“[T]he only luxury he allows himself is buying books, paperback books, mostly novels, American novels, British novels, foreign novels in translation, but… — Paul Auster Copy Share Image
Memoirs have dominated the literary scene now for ten or 20 or even 30 years: most of them seem to use the… — Paul Auster Copy Share Image
In my later novels, I systematically used the convention, and then a moment came - when did it come? With The Book… — Paul Auster Copy Share Image
Once you finish a book, it doesn't belong to you anymore. You're giving it to other people. If something in what a… — Paul Auster Copy Share Image
The mental state I'm in is completely different, but the act of trying to write is the same. I mean, in all… — Paul Auster Copy Share Image
I have to say in premise 'Winter Journal' is really not a memoir. And I don't even think of it as an… — Paul Auster Copy Share Image
I sometimes feel that my goal as a novelist would be to write a novel in which the language was so transparent… — Paul Auster Copy Share Image
“On his best walks, he was able to feel that he was nowhere. And this, finally, was all he ever asked of things: to… — Paul Auster Copy Share
“No es que escribir me produzca un gran placer, pero es mucho peor si no lo hago.” — Paul Auster Copy Share
You see, the interesting thing about books, as opposed, say, to films, is that it's always just one person encountering the book, it's not… — Paul Auster Copy Share
The joke is the purest, most essential form of storytelling. Every word has to count. — Paul Auster Copy Share
“What people saw when he appeared before them, then, was not really him, but a person he had invented, an artificial creature he could… — Paul Auster Copy Share
I had made an empirical discovery and it carried all the weight of a mathematical proof. — Paul Auster Copy Share
As long as there's one person to believe it, there's no story that can't be true. — Paul Auster Copy Share
Writing has always had a tactile quality for me. It's a physical experience. — Paul Auster Copy Share
People look at the same passage, and one person will say this is the best thing he's ever read, and another person will say… — Paul Auster Copy Share
I was very moved to see that the name of the boat was Hamlet - an imaginary character becomes so important to people, we… — Paul Auster Copy Share
Our lifelong certainties about the world can be demolished in a single second. — Paul Auster Copy Share
The ideal reader's the same, and I suppose this person has never had a face or a gender or an age. It's just some… — Paul Auster Copy Share
“Most lives vanish. A person dies, and little by little all traces of that life disappear. An inventor survives in his inventions, an architect… — Paul Auster Copy Share
![“I thought, "Well, I'm writing about early childhood, so maybe it would make sense to write about late childhood as well, early adulthood." Those were my thoughts, and this was how this crazy book [Winter Journal] was composed. I've never seen a book with pictures like at the end, pictures related…” quote by Paul Auster](https://sms4smile.com/q/img-quotes/2f0/paul-auster-351_adulthood_i-thought-well-i-m-writing-about-early-c_2914480.jpg)
![“[T]he only luxury he allows himself is buying books, paperback books, mostly novels, American novels, British novels, foreign novels in translation, but in the end books are not luxuries so much as necessities, and reading is an addiction he has no wish to be cured of.” quote by Paul Auster](https://sms4smile.com/q/img-quotes/a62/paul-auster-351_addiction_t-he-only-luxury-he-allows-himself-is-bu_2280053.jpg)
