Writer Quotes by F. Scott Fitzgerald

A writer wastes nothing.

— F. Scott Fitzgerald

I want leisure to read—an immense amount.

— F. Scott Fitzgerald

An unread book is just a block of paper.

— F. Scott Fitzgerald

“Books mean more than people to me anyway.”

— F. Scott Fitzgerald

You don't write because you want to say something, you write because you have something to say.

— F. Scott Fitzgerald

Nobody ever became a writer just by wanting to be one.

— F. Scott Fitzgerald

Books are like brothers. I am an only child. Gatsby [is] my imaginary eldest brother.

— F. Scott Fitzgerald

“All good writing is like swimming underwater and holding your breath.”

— F. Scott Fitzgerald

“Writers aren't exactly people, they're a bunch of people trying to be one person.”

— F. Scott Fitzgerald

I avoided writers very carefully because they can perpetuate trouble as no one else can.

— F. Scott Fitzgerald

“Nonfiction is a form of literature that lies halfway between fiction and fact.”

— F. Scott Fitzgerald

“Writers aren't exactly people, they are a whole bunch of people trying to be one person.”

— F. Scott Fitzgerald

Often I think writing is a sheer paring away of oneself leaving always something thinner, barer, more meagre.

— F. Scott Fitzgerald

“In fact to write (This Side of Paradise) took three months; to conceive it -three minutes; to collect the data in it-…

— F. Scott Fitzgerald

The history of my life is the history of the struggle between an overwhelming urge to write and a combination of circumstances…

— F. Scott Fitzgerald

To write it, it took three months; to conceive it three minutes; to collect the data in it all my life.

— F. Scott Fitzgerald

“Oh, it doesn't get me. I'm pretty well cloistered, and I suppose books mean more than people to me anyway.”

— F. Scott Fitzgerald

Reporting the extreme things as if they were the average things will start you on the art of fiction.

— F. Scott Fitzgerald

“There was the union of his soul with Gloria's, whose radiant fire and freshness was the living material of which the dead…

— F. Scott Fitzgerald

“I could never be a Communist. I could never be regimented. I could never be told what to write.”

— F. Scott Fitzgerald

A writer like me must have an utter confidence, an utter faith in his star. It's an almost mystical feeling, a feeling…

— F. Scott Fitzgerald

“A writer must find his own grain, way, bent. ...He aspires to create new and original works. His way is alone. If…

— F. Scott Fitzgerald

A classic,' suggested Anthony, 'is a successful book that has survived the reaction of the next period or generation. Then it's safe,…

— F. Scott Fitzgerald

When the first-rate author wants an exquisite heroine or a lovely morning, he finds that all the superlatives have been worn shoddy…

— F. Scott Fitzgerald

“ToScottie March 11, 1939 p. 387- 388 And please do not leave good books half- finished, you spoil them for yourself...Don't be…

— F. Scott Fitzgerald

The purpose of a work of fiction is to appeal to the lingering after-effects in the reader's mind as differing from, say,…

— F. Scott Fitzgerald

“To Frances Turnbull Nov. 9, 1938 p. 368 I've read the story carefully and, Frances, I'm afraid the price for doing professional…

— F. Scott Fitzgerald

“A stout, middle-aged man, with enormous owl-eyed spectacles, was sitting somewhat drunk on the edge of a great table, staring with unsteady…

— F. Scott Fitzgerald

You've got to sell your heart, your strongest reactions, not the little minor things that only touch you lightly, the little experiences…

— F. Scott Fitzgerald

“To daughter Scotty Oct. 20, 1936 p. 313 Don't be a bit discouraged about your story not being tops. At the same…

— F. Scott Fitzgerald

“He tries to go to life. So does every author except the very worst, but after all most of them live on…

— F. Scott Fitzgerald

There’s a writer for you,” he said. “Knows everything and at the same time he knows nothing.” [narrator]It was my first inkling…

— F. Scott Fitzgerald

A writer's temperament is continually making him do things he can never repair.

— F. Scott Fitzgerald

All good writing is swimming under water and holding your breath.

— F. Scott Fitzgerald

I suppose books mean more than people to me anyway

— F. Scott Fitzgerald

I wish I could write. I get these ideas but I never seem to be able to put them in words.

— F. Scott Fitzgerald

In short, you have only your emotions to sell. This is the experience of all writers.

— F. Scott Fitzgerald

“[About Ernest Hemingway] He’s a peach of a fellow and absolutely first-rate.”

— F. Scott Fitzgerald

“am merely mourning that so many good or lively books are dead so soon, or only imperfectly kept alive in the cheap…

— F. Scott Fitzgerald

Every author ought to write every book as if he were going to be beheaded the day he finished it.

— F. Scott Fitzgerald