writing

"If no one in the entire world cared about you, did you really exist at all?"

"One wants to tell a story, like Scheherezade, in order not to die. It's one of the oldest urges in mankind. It's a way of stalling death."

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

"Write,' she said, 'as if you'll never be read. That way you'll be sure to tell the truth."

"If it's fiction, then it better be true."

"I want to write a poem about "Truth,""Honor,""Dignity,"and whether the toilet paper should roll over or under when you pull on it."

"There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you."

"We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect."

"He was conscious of nothing except the blankness of the page in front of him, the itching of the skin above his ankle, the blaring of the music, and a slight booziness caused by the gin."

"A writer used to live life like Julius Seizure: I came, I saw, I queried. Now you can take control of your consciousness and self-publish."

"The only thing I was fit for was to be a writer, and this notion rested solely on my suspicion that I would never be fit for real work, and that writing didn't require any."

"Here's a haiku/palindrome I wrote called, "Obsession."Bob, Bob, Bob, Bob, Bob,Bob, Bob, Bob, Bob, Bob, Bob, Bob,Bob, Bob, Bob, Bob, Bob"

"A tamed woman will never leave her mark in the world."

"Somebody gets into trouble, then gets out of it again. People love that story. They never get tired of it."

"My advice to aspiring writers is to read more, write more, and network more. More, more, and more. Then, after you've done all that, do it some more."

"Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self."[The New Statesman, February 25, 1933]"

"not to find out new principles, or new arguments, never before thought of . . . but to place before mankind the common sense of the subject, in terms so plain and firm as to command their assent, and to justify ourselves in the independent stand we are compelled to take."

"Writing is a job, a talent, but it's also the place to go in your head. It is the imaginary friend you drink your tea with in the afternoon."

"A word after a word after a word is power."

"If you show someone something you've written, you give them a sharpened stake, lie down in your coffin, and say, ‘When you’re ready’."