WRITING QUOTES IV
quotations about writing
I seldom have a firm plot or any idea at all about the ending. But there is a clear, almost mathematically conceptual idea that determines length--the length or brevity of a literary work being comparable to the size of the frame needed by a picture.
HEINRICH BÖLL
The Paris Review, spring 1983
When asked for advice by beginners. Know your ending, I say, or the river of your story may finally sink into the desert sands and never reach the sea.
ISAAC ASIMOV
I, Asimov: A Memoir
There is probably no hell for authors in the next world--they suffer so much from critics and publishers in this.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
There is as much variety of pluck in writing across a sheet, as in riding across a country.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Literary Studies
It is the specialist's task to talk about means, about centimeters. An artist's task is to talk about the goal, about kilometers, thousands of kilometers. The organizing role of art consists of infecting the reader, of arousing him with pathos or irony -- the cathode and anode in literature. But irony that is measured in centimeters is pathetic, and centimeter-sized pathos is ridiculous. No one can be carried away by it. To stir the reader, the artist must speak not of means but of ends, of the great goal toward which mankind is moving.
YEVGENY ZAMYATIN
The Goal
In his prime the Hollywood screenwriter was one of the tragic figures of our age, evoking the special anguish that arises from feeling sorry for oneself while making large amounts of money.
J. G. BALLARD
A User's Guide to the Millennium
I don't write about things that I have the answers to or things that are very close to home. It just wouldn't be any adventure. It wouldn't have any vitality.
ANN BEATTIE
Conversations with Ann Beattie
I don't think it is worth explaining how a character's nose or chin looks. It is my feeling that readers will prefer to construct, little by little, their own character--the author will do well to entrust the reader with this part of the work.
JOSÉ SARAMAGO
The Paris Review, winter 1998
Completing a book, it's a little like having a baby.... There's a feeling of relief and satisfaction when you get to the end. A feeling that you have brought your family, your characters, home. Then a sort of post-natal depression and then, very quickly, the horizon of a new book. The consolation that next time I will do it better.
JOHN LE CARRÉ
interview, The Telegraph, August 31, 2010
A writer is a reader moved to emulation.
SAUL BELLOW
attributed, The Hidden Writer
To me, writing is not a profession. You might as well call living a profession. Or having children. Anything you can't help doing.
VICKI BAUM
I Know What I'm Worth
There's no such thing as perfect writing, just like there's no such thing as perfect despair.
HURAKI MURAKAMI
Hear the Wind Sing
The interesting thing is that I rarely look at the outline once I've done it. And when I read the outline once I've written the novel, I realize I've written a totally different book.
JONATHAN KELLERMAN
"Novelist explains how psychology training honed his writing", USC News, February 25, 2016
It's easy, after all, not to be a writer. Most people aren't writers, and very little harm comes to them.
JULIAN BARNES
Flaubert's Parrot
For me, writing is just a thing I need to do everyday, like breathing or eating.
GUY CAPECELATRO III
"Power of music shines in Capecelatro's heartfelt album", Seacoast Online, March 30, 2017
For a sentence is not complete unless each word, once its syllables have been pronounced, gives way to make room for the next.
ST. AUGUSTINE
Confessions
Every writer is an iron-monger that melts down old junk into new steel.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
Every writer in the country can write a beautiful sentence, or a hundred. What I am interested in is the ugly sentence that is also somehow beautiful.
DONALD BARTHELME
"On Paraguay"
Each book starts from ashes.
PHILIP ROTH
interview with Cynthia Haven, "The Book Haven"
Anything that happens to you has some bearing upon what you write.
JOHN DOS PASSOS
The Paris Review, spring 1969