writing

"Writing is like sausage making in my view; you'll all be happier in the end if you just eat the final product without knowing what's gone into it."

"I don’t ask writers about their work habits. I really don’t care. Joyce Carol Oates says somewhere that when writers ask each other what time they start working and when they finish and how much time they take for lunch, they’re actually trying to find out, "Is he as crazy as I am?"I don’t need that question answered."

"When writing goes painfully, when it’s hideously difficult, and one feels real despair (ah, the despair, silly as it is, is real!)–then naturally one ought to continue with the work; it would be cowardly to retreat. But when writing goes smoothly–why then one certainly should keep on working, since it would be stupid to stop. Consequently one is always writing or should be writing."

"I just knew there were stories I wanted to tell."

"But this I know; the writer who possesses the creative gift owns something of which he is not always master--something that at times strangely wills and works for itself. He may lay down rules and devise principles, and to rules and principles it will perhaps for years lie in subjection; and then, haply without any warning of revolt, there comes a time when it will no longer consent."

"Personally I think that grammar is a way to attain beauty."

"My most important piece of advice to all you would-be writers: When you write, try to leave out all the parts readers skip."

"I have tried to remove weight, sometimes from people, sometimes from heavenly bodies, sometimes from cities; above all I have tried to remove weight from the structure of stories and from language."

"Writing is both mask and unveiling."

"For once the disease of reading has laid upon the system it weakens so that it falls an easy prey to that other scourge which dwells in the ink pot and festers in the quill. The wretch takes to writing."

"A writer doesn’t solve problems. He allows them to emerge."

"I don't trust men everybody likes. Being nice isn't the same as being good."

"If neurotic is wanting two mutually exclusive things at one and the same time, then I'm neurotic as hell. I'll be flying back and forth between one mutually exclusive thing and another for the rest of my days."

"Imagination is like a muscle. I found out that the more I wrote, the bigger it got."

"We no longer know each other. Hell, I barely know myself these days. I brush my teeth and look in the mirror and think, “Who is this guy taking care of my oral hygiene?"

"Description begins in the writer’s imagination, but should finish in the reader’s."

"You're miserable, edgy and tired. You're in the perfect mood for journalism."

"فكم من الأشياء قد تحدث لنا بسبب ما نقرأ.ذلك أن ثمة قراءات تفعل بنا فعل الكتابة، وتوصلنا إلى حيث لا نتوقع !"

"If you want to be a writer, you have to write every day... You don't go to a well once but daily. You don't skip a child's breakfast or forget to wake up in the morning..."

"It's harder to write in the third person but the advantage is you move around better."