writing

"Writer speaks a stench."

"A writer must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid."

"But then, that’s the beauty of writing stories—each one is an exploratory journey in search of a reason and a shape. And when you find that reason and that shape, there’s no feeling like it."[Peter Wild Interviews TC Boyle, 3:AM Magazine, June 2003]"

"All I'm writing is just what I feel, that's all. I just keep it almost naked. And probably the words are so bland."

"She was broken from moment to moment, watching her world collide she felt lost inside herself. She fell apart for a passion that flamed beneath her. She waited and died a hundred times, it dripped from her pores. The moment she let go, she soared over the stillness like the star she was born to be."

"I'm an aspiring writer.' I hate that phrase. You're either a writer or you're not."

"I speak to the Black experience, but I am always talking about the human condition--about what we can endure, dream, fail at and survive."

"If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it."

"I want to live the rest of my life, however long or short, with as much sweetness as I can decently manage, loving all the people I love, and doing as much as I can of the work I still have to do. I am going to write fire until it comes out of my ears, my eyes, my noseholes--everywhere. Until it's every breath I breathe. I'm going to go out like a fucking meteor!"

"Let us record the atoms as they fall upon the mind in the order in which they fall, let us trace the pattern, however disconnected and incoherent in appearance, which each sight or incident scores upon the consciousness. Let us not take it for granted that life exists more fully in what is commonly thought big than in what is commonly thought small."

"Tears are words that need to be written."

"I write to give myself strength. I write to be the characters that I am not. I write to explore all the things I'm afraid of."

"It's not my brain that's writing the book, it's these hands of mine."

"I'd like to emphasize that when a reader finishes a great novel, he will immediately begin looking for another. If someone loves your book, it increases the chance that he or she will look at mine. So there is no competition between writers. Another writer's success helps build a larger readership for all of us."

"Ordinary life is pretty complex stuff."

"Definition of rock journalism: People who can't write, doing interviews with people who can't think, in order to prepare articles for people who can't read."

"I love writing, but hate starting. The page is awfully white and it says, 'You may have fooled some of the people some of the time but those days are over, Giftless. I'm not your agent and I'm not your mommy: I'm a white piece of paper. You wanna dance with me?' and I really, really don't. I'll go peaceable-like."

"If you're young and talented, it's like you have wings."

"Ink, a Drug."

"Failure is usually boring. It is the credible but unrealized threat of failure that is interesting."