“Ishmael gave himself to the writing of it, and as he did so he understood this, too: that accident ruled every corner… — David Guterson Copy Share Image
I like to be surprised. The best writing is when it defies me, when it starts going a different way than I… — Wally Lamb Copy Share Image
I am conscious of trying to stretch the boundaries of non-fiction writing. It's always surprised me how little attention many non-fiction writers… — Alain de Botton Copy Share Image
I used to want to be fully observational, but I'm just not that kind of writer. My process always changes depending on… — Brett Dennen Copy Share Image
When things aren't working out, we have a tendency to say, 'Go do other things,' but you shouldn't do other things. You… — Jacques Audiard Copy Share Image
It is very true to say that work done by writers is quite often an attempt to give solid expression to that… — Seamus Heaney Copy Share Image
To this day George Sr. is the soft touch and I'm the enforcer. I'm the one who writes them a letter and… — Barbara Bush Copy Share Image
I've always been sort of entrepreneurial. ... I felt that I needed to learn how to write and produce so I could… — Larry Wilmore Copy Share Image
If you keep on writing for three years, every day, you should be strong. Of course, you have to be strong mentally,… — Haruki Murakami Copy Share Image
My only qualifications to be an actor were that I'm daring, and I'm a quick learner. I've always learnt by watching what… — Colman Domingo Copy Share Image
There's an old saying: 'No piece of writing is ever finished, it's just abandoned.' But my own rule is: No piece of… — Chuck Palahniuk Copy Share Image
“I left the bank because they wouldn’t deposit my cheque of poems. So I went to the store, but they didn’t accept… — Kamand Kojouri Copy Share Image
Sometimes when I visit schools, kids will interview me for the school newspaper. They ask me questions and my answers tend to… — Patricia Reilly Giff Copy Share Image
Ever since I started writing in college, I have, save for a few short breaks here and there, been working away on… — Laura van den Berg Copy Share Image
Writers tend to write stories as a kind of holiday between novels, or as preliminary steps towards a novel. Stories just don't… — James Lasdun Copy Share Image
“In Bernardo Soares – a prose writer who poetizes, a dreamer who thinks, a mystic who doesn’t believe, a decadent who doesn’t… — Fernando Pessoa Copy Share Image
Most people won't realise that writing is a craft. You have to take your apprenticeship in it like anything else. — Katherine Anne Porter Copy Share Image
Only ambitious nonentities and hearty mediocrities exhibit their rough drafts. It's like passing around samples of sputum. — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
Crime stories are our version of sitting round a camp fire and telling tales. We enjoy being scared under safe circumstances. That's… — Camilla Lackberg Copy Share Image
“It's impossible to be a good writer if you haven't lived badly. A past life of drinking heavily, fighting and whoring all… — Ken Scott Copy Share Image
Write comic books if you love comic books so much that you want to write them. Don't write them like movies. Comics… — Grant Morrison Copy Share Image
I thought that if no one was going to give me a great part - and it was very difficult to break… — Chazz Palminteri Copy Share Image
You've got to give people an opportunity. But I also think that a lot of black writers don't know how to submit… — Deon Cole Copy Share Image
“Sometimes a book isn't a heartbreaking work of staggering genius. Sometimes it's the only story you knew how to tell.” — Tahereh Mafi Copy Share Image
I think that screenwriting probably isn't seen as writing in the same way that novel-writing is seen as writing. But I certainly… — Alex Garland Copy Share Image
I don't try and write strong female characters or strong male characters, I just try and write, hopefully, strong characters and sometimes… — J. J. Abrams Copy Share Image
I like beautiful writing, pain, unexpected humor, and the message that, at the last second, people are going to be kind to… — Jeff Giles Copy Share Image
I see so many talented writers who have difficulties with that. And if you don't believe it's important, you won't put in… — Theodora Goss Copy Share Image
I kind of write about visual art the way Roger Angell writes about baseball, which is to say, you're writing about life:… — Lawrence Weschler Copy Share Image
Having a writer in the family is a curse - for the family. I do feel more or less guilty when I'm… — Karl Ove Knausgard Copy Share Image
I've often been accused of making anthropology into literature, but anthropology is also field research. Writing is central to it. — Clifford Geertz Copy Share Image
“... except when I get down and write...then I let my imagination go to places I never knew existed and my characters… — Mark Alders Copy Share Image
To write a song is one thing, to get it to No.1 is another and to have a respected artist cover it… — Shakin' Stevens Copy Share Image
“Writing, in its noblest function, is the attempt to unerase, to unearth, to find the primitive picture again, ours, the one that… — Hélène Cixous Copy Share Image
Most writers regard the truth as their most valuable possession, and therefore are economical in its use. — Mark Twain Copy Share Image
Writing a love song for a girl is no good...but writing one for a Woman...Now that is something different. — Jasari Copy Share Image
I mostly write short stories. They are best written in a continuous creative process. You have a feel of immediacy. — Ruskin Bond Copy Share Image
All those writers who write about their own childhood! Gentle God, if I wrote about mine you wouldn't sit in the same… — Dorothy Parker Copy Share Image
My great joy is to give form to reality. Music is a great release, a great enjoyment to me. Eventually I'd like… — Jim Morrison Copy Share Image
I think books in which people are really happy and things are going well are probably the most challenging novels there are… — Anna Quindlen Copy Share Image
