#writing

"To those who care about punctuation, a sentence such as "Thank God its Friday"(without the apostrophe) rouses feelings not only of despair but of violence. The confusion of the possessive "its"(no apostrophe) with the contractive "it's"(with apostrophe) is an unequivocal signal of illiteracy and sets off a Pavlovian "kill"response in the average stickler."

"A new word. Bright with possibilities. A flawless pearl to turn over and over in my hand, then put away for safekeeping."

"I want to write because I have the urge to excel in one medium of translation and expression of life. I can't be satisfied with the colossal job of merely living. Oh, no, I must order life in sonnets and sestinas and provide a verbal reflector for my 60-watt lighted head."

"The only reason for being a professional writer is that you can't help it."

"Always carry a notebook. And I mean always. The short-term memory only retains information for three minutes; unless it is committed to paper you can lose an idea for ever."

"You can't judge a book by it's cover but you can sure sell a bunch of books if you have a good one."

"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."

"A writer only begins a book. A reader finishes it."

"No black woman writer in this culture can write "too much". Indeed, no woman writer can write "too much"...No woman has ever written enough."

"It is simply wrong to begin with a theme, symbol or other abstract unifying agent, and then try to force characters and events to conform to it."

"Because this business of becoming conscious, of being a writer, is ultimately about asking yourself, How alive am I willing to be?"

"I am simply of the opinion that you cannot be taught to write. You have to spend a lifetime in love with words."

"A good book will pull you in from the beginning and take you on a journey you'll never forget."

"Writing novels is much the same. You gather up bones and make your gate, but no matter how wonderful the gate might be, that alone doesn't make it a living breathing novel. A story is not something of this world. A real story requires a kind of magical baptism to link the world on this side with the world on the other side."

"Imagine in vibrant, wonderful detail your heart’s desire—a reality only you can envision, an adventure only you can direct.Then cradle your creation. Caress it. Mold it. Coddle it until it comes to life.And when your precious treasure grows so grand as to steal your breath away, set it free for all the world to experience. For that is how you live your dreams."

"No harm's done to history by making it something someone would want to read."(The Course of Human Events, NEH Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities 2003)"

"And ever, as the story drainedThe wells of fancy dry,And faintly strove that weary oneTo put the subject by,"The rest next time--""It is next time!"The Happy voice cry.Thus grew the tale of Wonderland"

"I'm not a writer. Ernest Hemingway was a writer. I just have a vivid imagination and type 90 WPM."

"I’m more of a journalist than anyone in the mainstream media, and I write fiction. More than fiction, I write absurd nonsense surrealism, and my work has more truth."

"I speak to the Black experience, but I am always talking about the human condition--about what we can endure, dream, fail at and survive."