writing

"My definition of dictionary can’t be found in the dictionary. Dictionary—A linguistic prison, confining words to well-defined cells, with little chance of parole."

"Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters"

"On the whole, stories don't write themselves."

"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."

"Real writers are those who want to write, need to write, have to write."

"Some writers enjoy writing, I am told. Not me. I enjoy having written."

"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."

"...(W)here there's drama, there's crap."

"For me, literacy means freedom. For the individual and for society."

"That's all we have, finally, the words, and they had better be the right ones."

"Long before I wrote stories, I listened for stories. Listening for them is something more acute than listening to them. I suppose it’s an early form of participation in what goes on. Listening children know stories are there. When their elders sit and begin, children are just waiting and hoping for one to come out, like a mouse from its hole."

"But I don’t want to go among mad people,"Alice remarked."Oh, you can’t help that,"said the Cat: "we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.""How do you know I’m mad?"said Alice."You must be,"said the Cat, "or you wouldn’t have come here."

"We are all pencils in the hand of God."

"Writer's block is just a symptom of feeling like you have nothing to say, combined with the rather weird idea that you should feel the need to say something. Why? If you have something to say, then say it. If not, enjoy the silence while it lasts. The noise will return soon enough."

"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."

"The recipe for great art has always been misery and a good bowel movement."

"Writing feels safer somehow. I can catch myself before I say the wrong thing."

"A writing may be lost; a lie may be written; but what the eye has seen is truth and remains in the mind!"

"At night, when the objective world has slunk back into its cavern and left dreamers to their own, there come inspirations and capabilities impossible at any less magical and quiet hour. No one knows whether or not he is a writer unless he has tried writing at night."

"Everything a writer learns about the art or craft of fiction takes just a little away from his need or desire to write at all. In the end he knows all of the tricks and has nothing to say."