In literature only trouble is interesting. It takes trouble to turn the great themes of life into a story: birth, love, sex, work, and death. — Janet Burroway Copy Share Image
The mystique and the false glamour of the writing profession grow partly out of a mistaken belief that people who can express profound ideas… — Janet Burroway Copy Share Image
The sensation of writing a book is the sensation of spinning, blinded by love and daring. It is the sensation of rearing and peering… — Janet Burroway Copy Share Image
Most writing is done between the mind and the hand, not between the hand and the page. — Janet Burroway Copy Share Image
In literature only trouble is interesting. It takes trouble to turn the great themes of life into a story: birth, love, sex, work, and… — Janet Burroway Copy Share Image
If character is the foreground of fiction, setting is the background, and as in a painting's composition, the foreground may be in harmony or… — Janet Burroway Copy Share Image
I sit and pass judgment on myself: this is dull, this is unclear, this is insignificant: ergo I am dull, I am unclear, I… — Janet Burroway Copy Share Image
The only justification for writing a novel is that it should be wonderful. Adequate is inadequate. — Janet Burroway Copy Share Image
Good girls like myself need subversion. Being solemn, I aspire to comedy. Being a novelist, I aspire to the musical. Being organized, I aspire… — Janet Burroway Copy Share Image
What matters is not publication or success (success is bad for your prose) but the practice of the imaginative act. Our damaged values depend… — Janet Burroway Copy Share Image
The human desire to know why is as powerful as the desire to know what happened next, and it is a desire of a… — Janet Burroway Copy Share Image
Reject without regret whatever seems on reflection wrongheaded, dull, destructive, or irrelevant to your vision. It’s just as important to be able to discriminate… — Janet Burroway Copy Share Image
Right now-whether you're in writing courses getting "paid" in credit for writing, or burdened and distracted by earning a living and changing diapers-figure out… — Janet Burroway Copy Share Image
