#writing

"88. People wonder why so many writers come to live in Paris. I’ve been living ten years in Paris and the answer seems simple to me: because it’s the best place to pick ideas. Just like Italy, Spain.. or Iran are the best places to pick saffron. If you want to pick opium poppies you go to Burma or South-East Asia. And if you want to pick novel ideas, you go to Paris."

"Read to escape reality . . . Write to embrace it."

"If the story you're telling, is the story you're telling, you're in deep shit."

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

"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."

"Who is more to be pitied, a writer bound and gagged by policemen or one living in perfect freedom who has nothing more to say?"

"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!"

"Beauty is not who you are on the outside, it is the wisdom and time you gave away to save another struggling soul, like you."

"I need you because I know I deserve you but let me fall in love with you one last time before I let go. So I can remember the beautiful imperfection that rattled my bones."

"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."

"This tremendous world I have inside of me. How to free myself, and this world, without tearing myself to pieces. And rather tear myself to a thousand pieces than be buried with this world within me."

"There is a rule for fantasy writers: The more truth you mix in with a lie, the stronger it gets."

"If you want to be a writer, you have to write every day... You don't go to a well once but daily. You don't skip a child's breakfast or forget to wake up in the morning..."

"The reason that fiction is more interesting than any other form of literature, to those who really like to study people, is that in fiction the author can really tell the truth without humiliating himself."

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

"The ideal art, the noblest of art: working with the complexities of life, refusing to simplify, to "overcome"doubt."

"To become successful, one must put themselves in the paths of giants!"

"The best way to become acquainted with a subject is to write about it."

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

"The best kind of humans are the ones who stay."