#writing

"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]"

"But that initial, comet-blazing-across-the-sky, Big Idea is only the beginning. Each book is composed of a mosaic of thousands of little ideas, ideas that invariably come to me at two in the morning when my alarm is set for seven."

"For a long time now I have tried simply to write the best I can. Sometimes I have good luck and write better than I can."

"One always has a better book in one's mind than one can manage to get onto paper."

"it is all very well for you to write simply and the simpler the better. But do not start to think so damned simply. Know how complicated it is and then state it simply."

"Shut up and write."

"Broadly speaking, the short words are the best, and the old words best of all."

"Writing is the geometry of the soul."

"The ability to dream is all I have to give. That is my responsibility; that is my burden. And even I grow tired."

"Writing is an exploration. You start from nothing."

"All novels are sequels; influence is bliss."

"Writing practice brings us back to the uniqueness of our own minds and an acceptance of it. We all have wild dreams, fantasies, and ordinary thoughts. Let us to feel the texture of them and not be afraid of them.Writing is still the wildest thing I know."

"A new word. Bright with possibilities. A flawless pearl to turn over and over in my hand, then put away for safekeeping."

"You don’t deserve my image in your head. You don’t deserve my memories in your chest."

"I write differently from what I speak, I speak differently from what I think, I think differently from the way I ought to think, and so it all proceeds into deepest darkness."

"Literature in the written sense represents the triumph of language over writing: the subversion of writing for purposes that have little or nothing to do with social and economic control."

"Make up a story... For our sake and yours forget your name in the street; tell us what the world has been to you in the dark places and in the light. Don't tell us what to believe, what to fear. Show us belief's wide skirt and the stitch that unravels fear's caul."

"Maybe love was meant to save us from ourselves."

"When I stop working the rest of the day is posthumous. I'm only really alive when I'm writing."

"I would rather be attacked than unnoticed. For the worst thing you can do to an author is to be silent as to his works."