Writing Quotes by Orson Scott Card

There is no society that does not highly value fictional storytelling. Ever.

— Orson Scott Card

I listen to music constantly while writing.

— Orson Scott Card

Writing sessions can last an hour or sixteen hours, depending on how it's going.

— Orson Scott Card

Everybody walks past a thousand story ideas every day.

— Orson Scott Card

I wonder sometimes if the motivation for writers ought to be contempt, not admiration.

— Orson Scott Card

Everybody walks past a thousand story ideas every day. The good writers are the ones who see five or six of them.…

— Orson Scott Card

Everything important in sci-fi showed up in the magazines first. It's the proving ground for new writers and new ideas.

— Orson Scott Card

You know how writers are... they create themselves as they create their work. Or perhaps they create their work in order to…

— Orson Scott Card

There is more good writing and good acting in any ten minutes of Twister than in, say, all of Citizen Kane.

— Orson Scott Card

When I write fiction, I create characters whose views are not my own, and I allow them to be eloquent in defense…

— Orson Scott Card

“Writers create themselves as they create their work. Or perhaps they create their work in order to create themselves.”

— Orson Scott Card

“Characters, as most writers understand, are truly developed through their relationships with others.”

— Orson Scott Card

“As often I have been a science fiction writer writing science fiction for the community of science fiction readers, I am also,…

— Orson Scott Card

The most important training, though, is to experience life as a writer, questioning everything, inventing multiple explanations for everything. If you do…

— Orson Scott Card

I fell into playwriting accidentally, took some classes in it, and also took creative writing classes, but I really didn't expect it…

— Orson Scott Card

Oh, Val," said Father. "All you have to do is live your life, and everyone around you will be happier." "No greatness,…

— Orson Scott Card

You can't write a novel all at once, any more than you can swallow a whale in one gulp. You do have…

— Orson Scott Card

But in the meantime I became accustomed to the writing life and it would be hard to change now - partly because…

— Orson Scott Card

Short stories are designed to deliver their impact in as few pages as possible. A tremendous amount is left out, and a…

— Orson Scott Card

Perhaps every writer who thoroughly creates a fictional world will inevitably create a mirror of his own time and yet also create…

— Orson Scott Card

“The danger that keeps me just a little frightened with every book I write, however, is that I’ll overreach myself once too…

— Orson Scott Card

Writer’s block is my unconscious mind telling me that something I’ve just written is either unbelievable or unimportant to me, and I…

— Orson Scott Card

“It wouldn't be practical to have sections called "Dog Stories", "Horse Stories", "Mid-life Crisis and Adultery", "Writers and Artists Struggling to Discover…

— Orson Scott Card

“I believe, when it comes to storytelling ... that mistakes are often the beginning of the best ideas. After all, a mistake…

— Orson Scott Card

“There's always moral instruction whether the writer inserts it deliberately or not. The least effective moral instruction in fiction is that which…

— Orson Scott Card

And if you're going to criticize me for not finishing the whole thing and tying it up in a bow for you,…

— Orson Scott Card

“The novelty and freshness you'll bring to the field won't come from the new ideas you think up. Truly new ideas are…

— Orson Scott Card

You grow a whole lot more as a writer by getting old stories out of the house and letting new ones come…

— Orson Scott Card

“They must talk to each other directly, Ender, mind to mind. What one thinks, another can also think; what one remembers, another…

— Orson Scott Card

“It is painful to fail. But it is far sadder when a storyteller stops wanting to try.”

— Orson Scott Card

I realized that everything important in sci-fi showed up in the magazines first. It's the proving ground for new writers and new…

— Orson Scott Card

“Who but the adolescent is free to have the adventures that most of us are looking for when we turn to storytellers…

— Orson Scott Card

I learned to separate the story from the writing, probably the most important thing that any storyteller has to learn-that there are…

— Orson Scott Card

“If a tale we're reading or watching on screen is too familiar, it becomes boring; we know the end from the beginning…

— Orson Scott Card

Changing the world is good for those who want their names in books. But being happy, that is for those who write…

— Orson Scott Card

“I learned to separate the story from the writing, probably the most important thing that any storyteller has to learn— that there…

— Orson Scott Card

The education that prepared me was my general education classes, which I tried to avoid when I was a stupid undergraduate, but…

— Orson Scott Card

...You believe that the kind of story you want to tell might be best received by the science fiction and fantasy audience.…

— Orson Scott Card