#writing

"There are very few innocent sentences in writing."

"...Writings can be stolen, or changed, or used for evil purposes. But isn't the risk worth taking? The more people who share knowledge, the greater safeguard for it. Isn't there more danger in ignorance than knowledge?"

"I...have always known that my destiny was, above all, a literary destiny — that bad things and some good things would happen to me, but that, in the long run, all of it would be convertedinto words. Particularly the bad things, since happiness does not need to be transformed: happiness is its own end."

"A bad book is as much of a labor to write as a good one; it comes as sincerely from the author's soul."

"Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you've been to college."

"I have tried to remove weight, sometimes from people, sometimes from heavenly bodies, sometimes from cities; above all I have tried to remove weight from the structure of stories and from language."

"People who read your ideas tend to think that your writings reflect your life."

"I have claimed that Escape is one of the main functions of fairy-stories, and since I do not disapprove of them, it is plain that I do not accept the tone of scorn or pity with which 'Escape' is now so often used. Why should a man be scorned if, finding himself in prison, he tries to get out and go home? Or if he cannot do so, he thinks and talks about other topics than jailers and prison-walls?"

"When you have a good romance, find ways to make their lives miserable and hellish...Do you think 'Titanic' would have been so popular if they had both lived? Not a prayer."

"Fantasy is hardly an escape from reality. It's a way of understanding it."

"To have the beginning of a truly great story, you need to have a character you're completely and utterly obsessed with. Without obsession, to the point of a maddening addiction,there's no point to continue."

"one does not only wish to be understood when one writes; one wishes just as surely not to be understood."

"Menjadi penulis adalah sebuah perjalanan panjang, yang tidak selalu diisi oleh hal-hal yang menyenangkan. Akan selalu ada kritik, akan selalu ada komentar negatif, akan selalu ada kesalahan. Yang terpenting adalah kita belajar dari kesalahan-kesalahan tersebut dan bangkit untuk menggapai mimpi kita."

"You can make anything by writing."

"When all the details fit in perfectly, something is probably wrong with the story."

"After writing a story I was always empty and both sad and happy, as though I had made love, and I was sure this was a very good story although I would not know truly how good until I read it over the next day."

"I’m up for the Julius Caesar Author of the Year Award this year. I’m tremendously proud, considering Caesar is the guy who burned down the Library of Alexandria."

"If you would not be forgotten, as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write things worth reading, or do things worth writing."

"Membaca dan menulis membuatmu menjadi."

"Write from the soul, not from some notion about what you think the marketplace wants.The market is fickle; the soul is eternal'."