I think that's what turns young men and women into writers - the happiness you discover living in books. — 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
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
I think all writers are a bit crazy; Damaged souls, incapable of doing anything else. — Paul Auster Copy Share Image
A book, at the same time, also has to do with what I call a buzz in the head. It's a certain… — 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 start, I have a feeling for the characters, and maybe the shape of the story. Sometimes I might even have… — 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
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 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
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
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
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
Writing is a solitary business. It takes over your life. In some sense, a writer has no life of his own. Even… — Paul Auster Copy Share Image
I've found that writing novels is an all-absorbing experience - both physical and mental - and I have to do it every… — Paul Auster Copy Share Image
As long as a man had the courage to reject what society told him to do, he could live life on his… — Paul Auster Copy Share Image
I was always very curious as a young man about why older writers who I met seemed so indifferent to what was… — Paul Auster Copy Share Image
“He realized that for Ponge there was no division between the work of writing and the work of seeing. For no word… — Paul Auster Copy Share Image
I knew from the age of 16 that I wanted to be a writer because I just didn't think I could do… — 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
“the only one with an ear for prose who could follow his arguments about why Flannery O’Conner and Grace Paley were bolder,… — Paul Auster Copy Share Image
When you're young, you keep reading new writers and you keep changing your mind about how you ought to sound. — Paul Auster Copy Share Image
All through my writing life, I've had this impulse to write autobiographical works. — Paul Auster Copy Share Image
All I wanted to do was write - at the time, poems, and prose, too. I guess my ambition was simply to… — 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
“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 Image
“No es que escribir me produzca un gran placer, pero es mucho peor si no lo hago.” — Paul Auster Copy Share Image
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 Image
The joke is the purest, most essential form of storytelling. Every word has to count. — Paul Auster Copy Share Image
“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 Image
I had made an empirical discovery and it carried all the weight of a mathematical proof. — Paul Auster Copy Share Image
As long as there's one person to believe it, there's no story that can't be true. — Paul Auster Copy Share Image
Writing has always had a tactile quality for me. It's a physical experience. — Paul Auster Copy Share Image
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 Image
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 Image
Our lifelong certainties about the world can be demolished in a single second. — Paul Auster Copy Share Image
