I thought I was clever enough to write as well as these people and I didn't realize that there is something called originality and your own voice.
Writing is an extreme privilege but it's also a gift. It's a gift to yourself and it's a gift of giving a story to someone.
My writing often contains souvenirs of the day - a song I heard, a bird I saw - which I then put into the novel.
I never think about the actual process of writing. I suppose I have a superstition about examining it too closely.
In this world where I sit at my desk writing these words, people die, they pass on, people are mortal. In the cyber world we inhabit they do not.
Walk, run, swim, cycle, sprint, limp, climb, fall, dream, think, write, break, build,...but keep flowing...keep moving.
It is healthier, in any case, to write for the adults one's children will become than for the children one's 'mature' critics often are.
I was brought up to try to see what was wrong and right it. Since I am a writer, writing is how I right it.
Somewhere Chesterton writes--I think it is Chesterton--that you cannot reason a man from a position that reason didn’t deliver him to.
I've always wanted to have a book published - it was a dream of mine, but the thought of actually writing a book made me feel really sick.
There's a lot of writing in television that can sound like it's taken out of a package, and the way to get around that is to not allow yourself to deliver it that way.
I sometimes think I cannot write another passage about a disappointing meal ever again, because I've done it so many times.
I painted myself into a corner by writing a whole book on this one period. The summer of 1927 came to an end, but nothing else did - all of these peoples' lives went on.
I think it's an area that one writes from that is curious because it is not a clearly defined partisan one.
I'm fully aware that some of the stuff I write is going to offend people or p*ss them off. They should be fully aware that I don't really care.
When the door to my writing chamber gasps shut and the almost imperceptible sigh of a rose petal falls on my desk, I know that my muse is present.
And yes, there's a simplicity to writing books because you're not a member of a team, so you make all the decisions yourself instead of deferring to a committee.
As soon as you start writing about how human beings interact with each other socially, you're into politics, aren't you?
The writing is all done, so it's all about verbalizing everything from point A to point B, and certainly there's a bit of politics involved, so it's a different thing.
I cry, sometimes, because I'm not 20 years younger, and I'm not healthy. But if I were, I would even sacrifice my writing to enter politics.
I am not a politics wonk. I like the idea of my writing reflecting more about who I am or other people.
