#writing

"I don't write about what I know: I write in order to find out what I know."

"Using my nipples as bait, I went fishing for compliments. I got a few bites, but nothing to write about in Field & Stream."

"All the stories I would like to write persecute me. When I am in my chamber, it seems as if they are all around me, like little devils, and while one tugs at my ear, another tweaks my nose, and each says to me, 'Sir, write me, I am beautiful."

"A blank piece of paper is God's way of telling us how hard it is to be God."

"Literature was not born the day when a boy crying "wolf, wolf"came running out of the Neanderthal valley with a big gray wolf at his heels; literature was born on the day when a boy came crying "wolf, wolf"and there was no wolf behind him."

"So long as you write what you wish to write, that is all that matters; and whether it matters for ages or only for hours, nobody can say."

"You have to find your own shtick. A Picasso always looks like Picasso painted it. Hemingway always sounds like Hemingway. A Beethoven symphony always sounds like a Beethoven symphony. Part of being a master is learning how to sing in nobody else's voice but your own."

"If a writer falls in love with you, you can never die."

"A serious adult story must be true to something in life. Since marvel tales cannot be true to the events of life, they must shift their emphasis towards something to which they can be true; namely, certain wistful or restless moods of the human spirit, wherein it seeks to weave gossamer ladders of escape from the galling tyranny of time, space, and natural law."

"it's good for you to write down your thoughts. It'stherapeutic because it forces you to slow down and think aboutlife."

"A story isn't a charcoal sketch, where every stroke lies on the surface to be seen. It's an oil painting, filled with layers that the author must uncover so carefully to show its beauty."

"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."

"My writing has appeared in the New Yorker and The Atlantic Monthly, though whenever the newsstand guy catches me scribbling my poetry in them, he always comes along later and erases it."

"There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are."

"Inspirations never go in for long engagements; they demand immediate marriage to action."

"I realized that the good stories were affecting the organs of my body in various ways, and the really good ones were stimulating more than one organ. An effective story grabs your gut, tightens your throat, makes your heart race and your lungs pump, brings tears to your eyes or an explosion of laughter to your lips."

"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."

"I arrived, I saw humans and I saw through their faces. Nothing ever changes but the light in their eyes. For I too have buried my demons today, without knowing what might remain beneath the face of tomorrow."

"Too many irons, not enough fire."

"I know I was writing stories when I was five. I don't know what I did before that. Just loafed, I suppose."