writing

"It took me fifteen years to discover that I had no talent for writing, but I couldn't give it up because by that time I was too famous."

"Usually I'm remarkably good natured. Try me on a day that doesn't end in y."

"To you I am neither man nor woman. I come before you as an author only. It is the sole standard by which you have a right to judge me--the sole ground on which I accept your judgment."

"The thoughts that occur to me while I’m running are like clouds in the sky. Clouds of all different sizes. They come and they go, while the sky remains the same sky always. The clouds are mere guests in the sky that pass away and vanish, leaving behind the sky."

"I have spent a good many years since―too many, I think―being ashamed about what I write. I think I was forty before I realized that almost every writer of fiction or poetry who has ever published a line has been accused by someone of wasting his or her God-given talent. If you write (or paint or dance or sculpt or sing, I suppose), someone will try to make you feel lousy about it, that's all."

"They say living well is the best revenge but sometimes writing well is even better."

"Dance above the surface of the world. Let your thoughts lift you into creativity that is not hampered by opinion."

"I've seen you, beauty, and you belong to me now, whoever you are waiting for and if I never see you again, I thought. You belong to me and all Paris belongs to me and I belong to this notebook and this pencil."

"It has been well said that an author who expects results from a first novel is in a position similar to that of a man who drops a rose petal down the Grand Canyon of Arizona and listens for the echo."

"Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia."

"It has taken me years of struggle, hard work, and research to learn to make one simple gesture, and I know enough about the art of writing to realize that it would take as many years of concentrated effort to write one simple, beautiful sentence."

"Strong words outlast the paper they are written upon."

"I curse in cursive. It's hard to read and harder take. But if you take it black, like coffee, then at least it may wake you up to the realities of life."

"Then you should say what you mean,"the March Hare went on. "I do,"Alice hastily replied; "at least--at least I mean what I say--that's the same thing, you know.""Not the same thing a bit!"said the Hatter. "You might just as well say that "I see what I eat"is the same thing as "I eat what I see"!"

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

"It’s not: I jumped in, and it was cold. No. It was cold, and I jumped in. Always arrange a sentence so you appear to be fearless, when in fact you are far less than fearless—you are clueless."

"You’ll drown in my love story, if I ever write it using a fountain pen."

"Writing has nothing to do with meaning. It has to do with landsurveying and cartography, including the mapping of countries yet to come."

"Writing is magic, as much the water of life as any other creative art. The water is free. So drink. Drink and be filled up."

"Broadly speaking, the short words are the best, and the old words best of all."