It is a misfortune to be in the presence of a writer, even a failed writer, to be seen by him, be his passing study and remain in his corrupt memory. It is like the insult of a corpse on the road by a war photographer.
I know writers have to be crazy. But more than that that, they have to get made and stay mad. If things don't make a writer mad, he'll end up writing Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cottantail.
A writer who’s a pro can take on almost any assignment, but if he or she doesn’t much care about the subject, I try to dissuade the writer, as in that case the book can be just plain hard labor.
Anxious, inexperienced writers obey rules. Rebellious, unschooled writers break rules. Artists master the form.
Hesitate once, hesitate twice, hesitate a hundred times before employing political standards as a device for the analysis and appreciation of poetry.
Dogma in power does have a unique chilling ingredient not exhibited by power, however ghastly, wielded for its own traditional sake.
The most important thing is not to think very much about oneself. To investigate candidly the charge; but not fussily, not very anxiously. On no account to retaliate by going to the other extreme -- thinking too much.
Fantasy is storytelling with the beguiling power to transform the impossible into the imaginable, and to reveal our own “real” world in a fresh and truth-bearing light.
To think that realistic fiction is by definition superior to imaginative fiction is to think imitation is superior to invention.
Write what disturbs you, what you fear, what you have not been willing to speak about. Be willing to be split open.
Play around. Dive into absurdity and write. Take chances. You will succeed if you are fearless of failure.
I consider myself a writer who writes about American expatriates. And if I have any overt cause as a writer besides writing the best prose I can, it's to try to make Americans have a more visceral feeling about how America impacts everybody in the wo...
To me the only real star of the movie is the writer. And I work with writers very closely, from outline to first draft and on to the seventh draft, whatever it takes. Then my job is to support the director to make the best movie we can. Some producer...
Any man who keeps working is not a failure. He may not be a great writer, but if he applies the old-fashioned virtues of hard, constant labor, he'll eventually make some kind of career for himself as writer." [ ]
In college, I had a lot of friends who were writers and wanted to be writers and I felt intimidated by it. I just didn't know if I had any gift or voice and I had no confidence about it.
Of course, the way writers think about those things is almost certain to be affected by their own cultural background, and it would be hard to deny that, for whatever reasons, a lot of SF writers come from Anglo or European backgrounds.
The new contract between writers and readers is one I'm prepared to sign up to. I've met some fascinating people at events and online. Down with the isolation of writers I say! And long live Twitter.
I don't think she is underappreciated, certainly not among writers, but Alice Munro is the classic underappreciated writer among readers. It is almost a cliche now to wonder why this living legend is not more widely read.
I hated the idea that I would be like my father. Which is one of the reasons I decided I didn't want to be a writer and wanted to be an actor instead. I wanted to go in a total different direction. But, of course, I ended up being a writer anyway.
One of the things I learned from my father, and it did not serve me well at all, was that he was a successful writer, he earned a living. And it was a shock for me to find out that it was actually hard to make a living as a writer.
Don't let your characters tell you what to do. They can be pushy. Some writers say that they create characters and then just sort of follow them around through the narrative. I think that these writers are out of their minds.
