#writing

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

"An original writer is not one who imitates nobody, but one whom nobody can imitate."

"My very small part in WATCHMEN is that, every now and then, Alan would phone me: ''Neil, you're an educated man. Where does it say...''He would need a quote from the Bible, or an essay about owls. I was his occasional research assistant."

"Nothing makes a person desire improvement like failure"

"I read anything that’s going to be interesting. But you don’t know what it is until you’ve read it. Somewhere in a book on the history of false teeth there’ll be the making of a novel."

"Every day I type out my dream scribbles from the night before, looking for treasure buried deep in my subconscious."

"True literature can exist only where it is created, not by diligent and trustworthy functionaries, but by madmen, hermits, heretics, dreamers, rebels, and skeptics."

"The decision to kiss for the first time is the most crucial in any love story. It changes the relationship of two people much more strongly than even the final surrender; because this kiss already has within it that surrender."

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

"Writers are the exorcists of their own demons."

"Inspiration comes of working every day."

"A few weeks after the worst day, I started writing lots of letters. I don't know why, but it was one of the only things that made my boots lighter."

"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."

"Writing is the only profession where no one considers you ridiculous if you earn no money."

"Cram your head with characters and stories. Abuse your library privileges. Never stop looking at the world, and never stop reading to find out what sense other people have made of it. If people give you a hard time and tell you to get your nose out of a book, tell them you're working. Tell them it's research. Tell them to pipe down and leave you alone."

"I stand in the mist and cry, thinking of myself standing in the mist and crying, and wondering if I will ever be able to use this experience in a book."

"I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear."

"People do not deserve good writing, they are so pleased with bad."

"People love a happy ending. So every episode, I will explain once again that I don't like people. And then Mal will shoot someone. Someone we like. And their puppy."

"On the whole, stories don't write themselves."