Writing Quotes by John Green

Writing does not resurrect. It buries.

— John Green

A novel is a conversation between a reader and a writer.

— John Green

The right story needs the right telling.

— John Green

“For who so firm that cannot be seduced?" she'd written.”

— John Green

Read a lot. Read broadly... Tell stories to your friends, and pay attention to when they get bored... Write a lot.

— John Green

This is what I love about novels - both reading them and writing them. They jump into the abyss to be with…

— John Green

“Van Houten, I'm a good person but a shitty writer. you're a shitty person but a good writer.”

— John Green

Different authors write different ways, have different relationships with their audiences, and those are all legitimate.

— John Green

“Sometimes I dream that I'm writing a memoir. A memoir would just be the thing to keep me in the hearts and…

— John Green

We have this habit of romanticizing the lives of writers. I remember when I was a kid, I was like, 'I want…

— John Green

I write about broken people who need other people in order to go on. But those are the only kind of people…

— John Green

I think that most of us [writers] would rather have an audience than countless riches. If we wanted to be rich, we'd…

— John Green

“I liked reading biographies of writers, even if (as was the case with Monsieur Rabelais)I'd never read any of their actual writing.…

— John Green

[This] is very important to remember when reading or writing or talking or whatever: You are never, ever choosing whether to use…

— John Green

I'm at the eye doctor. I'm always at the eye doctor. It's like this is my profession. I am no longer a…

— John Green

If my public existence does anything worthwhile, hopefully it at least demystifies the author a bit, because I know when I was…

— John Green

I know that books seem like the ultimate thing that's made by one person, but that's not true. Every reading of a…

— John Green

I think instead writers and publishers and readers need to go to the places where people are, and make the argument that…

— John Green

“I never wish I could go back and write more, no. I spent a long, long time trying to write the book…

— John Green

Whenever I'm asked what advice I have for young writers, I always say that the first thing is to read, and to…

— John Green

“I'll write you an epilogue, I will, I will. Better than any shit that drunk could write. His brain is Swiss cheese.…

— John Green

[My] interest as a writer is not in reflecting actual human speech, which, of course, does not occur in sentences and is…

— John Green

I enjoy writing about people falling in love, probably because I think the first time you fall in love is the first…

— John Green

When you're writing a novel, you spend four years sitting in your basement and a year waiting for the book to come…

— John Green

Every time I try to set something in Chicago, I get intimidated by 'Augie March.' It's easy to set something in Indianapolis…

— John Green

Writing, or at least good writing, is an outgrowth of that urge to use language to communicate complex ideas and experiences between…

— John Green

One of the pitfalls about writing about illness is that it is very easy to imagine people with cancer as either these…

— John Green

“Van Houten, I’m a good person but a shitty writer. You’re a shitty person but a good writer. We’d make a good…

— John Green

“Why do writers use symbolism?” Okay, so let’s say you have a headache and you wanna tell someone about it and you…

— John Green

“I have never killed anyone, fictional or otherwise. I have no idea what it’s like to kill someone, but it seems like…

— John Green

Go spit in the face of our inevitable obsolescence and finish your @#$&ng novel.

— John Green

I wrote my first novel and my second novel in Chicago. It was the place where I became a writer. It's my…

— John Green

“For me, at least, fiction is the only way i can even begin to twist my lying memories into something true.”

— John Green

I'm not interested in writing for adults. I like them as people! I don't like the way they publish books in that…

— John Green

Writing is something you do alone. It's a profession for introverts who wanna tell you a story but don't wanna make eye…

— John Green

That's how writing works, at least for me: even the stuff that doesn't work out gets funneled into the stuff that does…

— John Green

“if you ever do decide to write anything else, even if you don’t want to publish it, I’d love to read it.…

— John Green

Okay, maybe I'm not such a shitty writer. But I can't pull my ideas together, Van Houten. My thoughts are stars I…

— John Green

And yes, again, that was it exactly. A retyper and not a writer. A prodigy and not a genius.

— John Green

We're professional worriers. You're constantly imagining things that could go wrong and then writing about them.

— John Green