Category Archives: quote

To most readers the word ‘fiction’ is an utter fraud. They are entirely convinced that each character has an exact counterpart in real life and that any small discrepancy with that counterpart is a simple error on the author’s part. Consequently, they are totally at a loss if anything essential is altered. Make Abraham Lincoln a dentist, put the Gettysburg… (more…)

We are a species that needs and wants to understand who we are. Sheep lice do not seem to share this longing, which is one reason why they write so little. – Anne Lamott

“We write to heighten our own awareness of life. We write to lure and enchant and console others. We write to serenade our lovers. We write to taste life twice, in the moment, and in retrospection. We write to render all of it eternal, and to persuade ourselves that it is eternal. We write to be able to transcend our… (more…)

If you believe you are thinking, make yourself stop thinking. You are trying to tap a part of yourself that is closest to the dreaming side. – Richard Bausch

All writers are vain, selfish and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives lies a mystery. Writing a book is a long, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand. – George Orwell

I shall live badly if I do not write, and I shall write badly if I do not live. – Francoise Sagan

“Writing itself is one of the great, free human activities.  There is scope for individuality, and elation, and discovery.  In writing, for the person who follows with trust and forgiveness what occurs to him, the world remains always ready and deep, an inexhaustible environment, with the combined vividness of an actuality and flexibility of a dream.  Working back and forth… (more…)

Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us get up and go to work. – Stephen King