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Writing Quotes by Dani Shapiro

53 Writing quotes by Dani Shapiro

All Writing quotes Dani Shapiro’s page

Courage and patience are the tools a writer keeps close. Shapiro says the writer’s life needs empathy, discipline, and the ability to sit alone with oneself, letting material appear on its own. She also points out that curiosity fuels the work and that over‑thinking only stalls the carving of ideas.

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I never feel so alive as when I'm writing and the work is going well.

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Everything I know about life I learned from the daily practice of sitting down to write.

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When it comes to the personal essays I write, I just convince myself that no one will ever read them.

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Everything you need to know about life can be learned from a genuine and ongoing attempt to write

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If you write memoir, it can't be about blame or hurt; it has to be creative.

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Music inspires me and puts me in the right mood, but to actually listen to it when I write - I find…

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As a writer we are our own instruments; we need to protect our instrument, because no one will protect it if we…

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I think there's something about a writer's disposition, that is, even if unaware, always slightly in a witness state.

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It's essential to have sacred time for writing. All successful authors have some daily commitment to keep on-track and moving forward.

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If you are a writer or any kind of artist, if you change something as fundamental as where you live - the…

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Novels are my favorite to write and read. I do like writing personal essays, too. I'm not really a short story writer,…

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I'm a full-time writer, which means I have the entire day to get my work done. But that can also be bad,…

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If there's anything weirder than an introverted writer going to lots of social functions, it's an introverted writer being converted into an…

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As a fiction writer, that's been a preoccupation of mine: Can you really just close the door and leave the past back…

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There are books that a writer undertakes because she wants to go on a journey, and there are journeys a writer undertakes…

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The Internet and all its lures are much, much harder than anything I've ever encountered. If you're writing on a computer, the…

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“I can tell you that the writing of a book, no matter how deeply, profoundly personal-if it is literature, if you have…

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With tremendous clarity and wisdom, Daniel Tomasulo has crafted a memoir at once heartbreaking and uplifting. Layers of time and memory—childhood, adolescence,…

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The writing life requires courage, patience, persistence, empathy, openness, and the ability to deal with rejection. It requires the willingness to be…

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“Write the words "The FIve Senses" on an index card and tack it to a bulletin board above your desk. You should…

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If I waited to be in the mood to write, I'd barely have a chapbook of material to my name. Who would…

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There's nothing confessional about crafting and shaping a story out of a lived life. In fact, it's quite the opposite - the…

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I was in my early thirties writing about my early twenties, so there was this way of seeing my younger self from…

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Writing well involves walking the path of most resistance. Sitting still, being patient, allowing the lunatic dream to take shape on the…

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A writer with her work needs to be like a dog with a bone all the time. She needs to know where…

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“When writers who are just starting out ask me when it gets easier, my answer is never. It never gets easier. I…

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“Still writing?" I usually nod and smile, then quickly change the subject. But here is what I would like to put down…

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I knew I wanted to be a writer before I knew that being a writer was possible.

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With each book you write you have to learn how to write that book - so every time, you have to start…

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How do we live the writer's life? There's only one simple answer: 'we write.'

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As writers, it is our job not only to imagine, but to witness.

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When I was writing my first novel, I smoked cigarettes. And when I think about what it was like to smoke, I…

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There's a danger in romanticizing what it means to be a writer. Because what it really means is hard, hard work. It…

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I don't think it's possible to separate out the strands of a writer's history, circumstances, life events, and that writer's themes.

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I do keep a tiny little journal in which I write passages that I read and want to hold on to. This…

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My journals were a clearing house - a garbage can. Once I was writing seriously, I understood that this was the stuff…

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I do whatever is necessary in order to maintain the equanimity we all need to withstand the disappointment and rejection that are…

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Writers are outsiders. Even when we seem like insiders, we're outsiders. We have to be. Our noses pressed to the glass, we…

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You have to believe in yourself before the world has given you any indication that you should believe in yourself as a…

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Confidence is highly overrated when it comes to creating literature. A writer who is overly confident will not engage in the struggle…

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More by Dani Shapiro

“The writer’s life requires courage, patience, empathy, openness. It requires the ability to be alone with oneself. Gentle with oneself. To be disciplined, and…

I never troll for material. It simply presents itself, and is always unmistakable. This is why I want to roll my eyes when people…

I had never really felt settled in Brooklyn. I think it had to do with growing up in New Jersey and being someone who…

When I near the end of a book, it feels as if the entire universe meets me more than halfway and supports me. The…

Everything you need to know about life can be learned from a genuine and ongoing attempt to write

We don't choose what's going to wake us up.

Everything changes. The more I try to hold on to the moment, the more it slips through my fingers.

There is no end to the promotion. There is no end to the possibilities. You can continue to promote a book for years, literally.

We can't protect ourselves from pain and heartache.

A writer with her work needs to be like a dog with a bone all the time. She needs to know where she's hidden…

“Oh, child! Somewhere inside you, your future has already unfurled like one of those coiled-up party streamers, once shiny, shaken loose, floating gracefully for…

I never feel so alive as when I'm writing and the work is going well.

I do strongly identify with being Jewish. I was raised Orthodox and had a childhood complicated by the fact that my father was deeply…

The fact is that most husbands, regardless of religion - it's an old-fashioned gender divide where the husband wants to stay home and the…

Novels are my favorite to write and read. I do like writing personal essays, too. I'm not really a short story writer, nor do…