writing

"Every writer I know has trouble writing."

"And what is wrong with playing with words? Words love to be played with, just like children or kittens do!"

"You never push a noun against a verb without trying to blow up something."

"Only by examining our personal biases can we truly grow as artists; only by cultivating empathy can we truly grow as people."

"This is no book. Whoever touches this touches a man."

"You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you."

"I'm writing an unauthorized autobiography."

"Writers cannot choose their own mood: with them it is not always hide-tide, nor --thank Heaven!--always Storm."

"It's strange because sometimes, I read a book, and I think I am the people in the book."

"A little talent is a good thing to have if you want to be a writer. But the only real requirement is the ability to remember every scar."

"To achieve lasting literature, fictional or factual, a writer needs perceptive vision, absorptive capacity, and creative strength."

"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]"

"If a writer stops observing he is finished. Experience is communicated by small details intimately observed."

"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."

"If the word doesn't exist, invent it; but first be sure it doesn't exist."

"The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do."

"The true alchemists do not change lead into gold; they change the world into words."

"The Sacred and The Scared. Which of these two categories does your love fall under? I should write a love poem on a rolled-up scroll so you’d know which one categorizes mine."

"When I begin to doubt my ability to work the word, I simply read another writer and know I have nothing to worry about. My contest is only with myself, to do it right, with power, and force, and delight, and gamble."

"the writing of somemenis like a vast bridgethat carries youoverthe many thingsthat claw and tear.The Wine of Forever"