“One of the hardest concepts for students to grasp or accept about writing is the time that it takes to make something… — Cynthia D. Urbanski Copy Share Image
“Author says writing about Jesus is difficult because it is like writing about a friend "who is still liable to surprise us.” — N.T. Wright Copy Share Image
If the novelist shares his or her problems with the characters, he or she is able to study his personal unconscious. — Manuel Puig Copy Share Image
With novels, you're sitting at a desk, alone, going slightly crazy, for anywhere from six months to a year with zero feedback. — Duane Swierczynski Copy Share Image
I got my Bachelor's degree in nursing and worked nine years - even taught nursing in a college - before I stopped… — Sue Monk Kidd Copy Share Image
As a fiction writer, one of things you learn is God lives in specificity. You know, human kindness is increased as we… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
Let go of the idea that somehow you can outsmart a first draft. Because I have never met anybody who can. — Leigh Bardugo Copy Share Image
In the immediate aftermath of the separation I just wrote and wrote and wrote. And wrote and wrote and wrote. Thank God… — Pegi Young Copy Share Image
The gloomy recess of an ecclesiastical library is like a harbor, into which a far-traveling curiosity has sailed with its freight, and… — Robert Aris Willmott Copy Share Image
“The library turned out to be a very pleasant place, but it was not the comfortable chairs, the huge wooden bookshelves, or… — Lemony Snicket Copy Share Image
All the books on my shelves, when I would go to them to look for help with my anguish, they all just… — Phil Elvrum Copy Share Image
“Ann Patchett about the lack of a fiction Pulitzer winner this year. "Let me underscore the obvious here: Reading fiction is important.… — Lynne Marshall Copy Share Image
“Reading wasn't an attempt to educate myself. It was my chief escape from a world that, although gorgeous in landscape and rich… — Chris Offutt Copy Share Image
“I once heard an author describe writing as taking bits and pieces of her experiences and observations, then she questions, dissects, and… — Laurie Brown Copy Share Image
Sin in the Second City is a masterful history lesson, a harrowing biography, and - best of all - a superfun read.… — Darin Strauss Copy Share Image
A great piece of literature does not try to coerce you to believe it or agree with it. A great piece of… — Madeleine L'Engle Copy Share Image
To write, I think it is very important to read. The more you read, the more you know the techniques of writing. — Sudha Murty Copy Share Image
[T]he public library is where those without money, power, access, university affiliation, or advanced degrees can get information for free. — Siva Vaidhyanathan Copy Share Image
I don't write about things that I have the answers to or things that are very close to home. It just wouldn't… — Ann Beattie Copy Share Image
My husband wrote the story for my first book, but then he didn't want to do that anymore. So if I was… — Natalie Babbitt Copy Share Image
I remain totally convinced that if we can do one more simple thing to help kids and adults to learn more, it… — Dolly Parton Copy Share Image
“Literature is the queen of the arts —the greatest of them all, because it embraces them all. When you write, you are… — César Aira Copy Share Image
To be a writer you need to see things as they are, and to see things as they are you need a… — Tobias Wolff Copy Share Image
“My first editor used to say that eighty-five per cent of what goes on in a novelist's head is none of his… — Stephen King Copy Share Image
She writes like a loom, producing her broad rich fabric with hardly a thought of how it will make up into a… — H G Wells Copy Share Image
The - writing is a kind of act of aggression, and a person who is not aggressive in his normal, may I… — John Updike Copy Share Image
I think what helps me when I'm working on a play, any play, is the degree to which the writer has truly… — Jeffrey DeMunn Copy Share Image
“I think you overestimate the maturity of adults, he wrote me in his final letter, a letter he sent only after I’d… — Maggie Nelson Copy Share Image
Six books… my mother didn’t want books falling into my hands. It never occurred to her that I fell into the books… — Jeanette Winterson Copy Share Image
“When people ask me why I'm writing 15 books, I tell them I didn't choose to write 15 books, they chose me!!” — Diem Burden Copy Share Image
I thought I could never write a proper book; I'd never done it before. But I thought I could write a sequence.… — Tana French Copy Share Image
A professional man of letters, especially if he is much at war with unscrupulous enenemies, is naturally jealous of his privacy... so… — Anonymous Copy Share Image
our finest writing will certainly come from what is unregenerate in ourselves. It will come from the part that is obdurate, unbanishable,… — Bonnie Friedman Copy Share Image
“It’s easy to become careless when making rough comparisons, but the alternative is a prissy attention to detail that takes all the… — Stephen King Copy Share Image
Writing provides no guarantees. And writers who stay with writing do it for reasons that are larger than self. — Jayne Anne Phillips Copy Share Image
I try to write 1,000 words. Some people say it's not about the quantity but about the quality. I disagree. You need… — Nathaniel Rich Copy Share Image
“When I consider writing I sometimes wonder why doesn't everybody do it, other times I wonder why does anybody do it.” — Tonny K. Brown Copy Share Image
“Downstairs Peter Beste-Chetwynde mixed himself another brandy and soda and turned a page in Havelock Ellis, which, next to The Wind in… — Evelyn Waugh Copy Share Image
I'm a very laboured writer. I hammer it out sentence by sentence, and it takes a long time. That's what the work… — Janet Malcolm Copy Share Image
I shudder to think of an eternity spend without books. I have hopes that every book that was ever lost is somewhere… — Mel Odom Copy Share Image