#writing

"Writing's a lot like cooking. Sometimes the cake won't rise, no matter what you do, and every now and again the cake tastes better than you ever could have dreamed it would."

"I wrote you a love letter. I used invisible ink to show I was being transparent with my feelings. And also to hide my feelings."

"The words get easier the moment you stop fearing them."

"And that's why books are never going to die. It's impossible. It's the only time we really go into the mind of a stranger, and we find our common humanity doing this. So the book doesn't only belong to the writer, it belongs to the reader as well, and then together you make it what it is."

"If you only write when inspired, you may be a fairly decent poet, but you'll never be a novelist."

"In high school I used to write my love notes backwards, so she'd have to flip the paper upside-down to read it. Either that or read it in a mirror, so she can see herself as I see her, and see why I admire her."

"Realism can break a writer's heart."

"I want to live the rest of my life, however long or short, with as much sweetness as I can decently manage, loving all the people I love, and doing as much as I can of the work I still have to do. I am going to write fire until it comes out of my ears, my eyes, my noseholes--everywhere. Until it's every breath I breathe. I'm going to go out like a fucking meteor!"

"I never exactly made a book. It's rather like taking dictation. I was given things to say."

"Every reader finds himself. The writer's work is merely a kind of optical instrument that makes it possible for the reader to discern what, without this book, he would perhaps never have seen in himself."

"A good [short story] would take me out of myself and then stuff me back in, outsized, now, and uneasy with the fit."

"The writer is either a practicing recluse or a delinquent, guilt-ridden one--or both. Usually both."

"When you can write music that endures, bravo. Until then, keep quiet and study the work of those who can."

"Every morning I jump out of bed and step on a landmine. The landmine is me. After the explosion, I spend the rest of the day putting the pieces together."

"The best fame is a writer's fame. It's enough to get a table at a good restaurant, but not enough to get you interrupted when you eat."

"Luck? I don’t know anything about luck. I’ve never banked on it and I’m afraid of people who do. Luck to me is something else: hard work - and realizing what opportunity is and what isn’t."— Lucille Ball"

"Let's see if I can write about something other than my heart."

"I go on writing so that I will always have something to read."

"My task, which I am trying to achieve is, by the power of the written word, to make you hear, to make you feel--it is, before all, to make you see."

"One should use common words to say uncommon things"