#writing

"Any word you have to hunt for in a thesaurus is the wrong word. There are no exceptions to this rule."

"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"

"Half of what I write is garbage, but if I don't write it down it decomposes in my head."

"I've seen you, beauty, and you belong to me now, whoever you are waiting for and if I never see you again, I thought. You belong to me and all Paris belongs to me and I belong to this notebook and this pencil."

"It is the tale, not he who tells it."

"Read a thousand books, and your words will flow like a river."

"I can't play bridge. I don't play tennis. All those things that people learn, and I admire, there hasn't seemed time for. But what there is time for is looking out the window."

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

"Not all of Derrida's writing is to everyone's taste. He had an irritating habit of overusing the rhetorical question, which lends itself easily to parody: 'What is it, to speak? How can I even speak of this? Who is this "I"who speaks of speaking?"

"I know the X’s and O’s of football. I just don’t know the other 24 letters. And as a writer, this bothers me."

"To write as if your life depended on it; to write across the chalkboard, putting up there in public the words you have dredged; sieved up in dreams, from behind screen memories, out of silence-- words you have dreaded and needed in order to know you exist."

"If I do not write to empty my mind, I go mad."

"Women writers make for rewarding (and efficient) lovers. They are clever liars to fathers and husbands; yet they never hold their tongues too long, nor keep ardent typing fingers still."

"If you're just starting out as a writer, you could do worse than strip your television's electric plug-wire, wrap a spike around it, and then stick it back into the wall. See what blows, and how far. Just an idea."

"Writing a story, regardless of length, begins always with a single word."

"Ideas come at any moment -- except when you demand them. Most ideas come while I'm physically active, at the gym, with friends, gardening, so I always carry pen and paper.My first draft is always written in longhand. But once the first dozen chapters, more like short stories, are written, then momentum builds until I can't leave the project until it's done."

"You cannot hope to sweep someone else away by the force of your writing until it has been done to you."

"Write every day, line by line, page by page, hour by hour. Do this despite fear. For above all else, beyond imagination and skill, what the world asks of you is courage, courage to risk rejection, ridicule and failure. As you follow the quest for stories told with meaning and beauty, study thoughtfully but write boldly. Then, like the hero of the fable, your dance will dazzle the world."

"A novel rough draft is like bread dough; you need to beat the crap out of it for it to rise."

"Words are magic. They have the power to hurt and to heal, and even withholding them has the power to hurt and to heal. What else has as much potency in its absence and can do without doing? What I mean is, even when you don’t say anything, you are communicating as effectively as if you’d spoken."