Because every
story begins
with words

Chet Cunningham

Ever heard of a carpenter not going to work because he has “carpenter’s block”? If a writer can’t write, it’s because he doesn’t really want to, he isn’t ready to get it on paper or he’s just plain lazy.

I’m writing a book. I’ve got the page numbers done.

Stephen Wright

Work on a computer that is disconnected from the Internet.

Zadie Smith

Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.

E. L. Doctorow

Everybody walks past a thousand story ideas every day. The good writers are the ones who see five or six of them. Most people don’t see any.

Orson Scott Card

Biography should be written by an acute enemy.

Arthur Balfour

If you start with a bang, you won’t end with a whimper.

T.S. Eliot

The character that lasts is an ordinary guy with some extraordinary qualities.

Raymond Chandler

Every writer with half a brain knows to surround himself or herself with editors who are smarter, far more articulate and infinitely better looking.

Chris Claremont

Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamppost how it feels about dogs.

Christopher Hampton

Good instincts usually tell you what to do long before your head has figured it out.

Michael Burke

You can always edit a bad page. You can’t edit a blank page.

Jodi Picoult

Do not place a photograph of your favorite author on your desk, especially if the author is one of the famous ones who committed suicide.

Roddy Doyle

There are three primal urges in human beings: Food, sex, and rewriting someone else’s play.

Romulus Linney

It begins with a character, usually, and once he stands up on his feet and begins to move, all I can do is trot along behind him with a paper and pencil, trying to keep up long enough to put down what he says and does.

William Faulkner

Substitute “damn” every time you’re inclined to write “very”; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.

Mark Twain

You may be able to take a break from writing, but you won’t be able to take a break from being a writer.

Stephen Leigh

If you wait for inspiration to write, you’re not a writer. You’re a waiter.

Dan Poynter

Books aren’t written, they’re rewritten. Including your own. It is one of the hardest things to accept, especially after the seventh rewrite hasn’t quite done it.

Michael Crichton

Anecdotes don’t make good stories. Generally, I dig down underneath them so far that the story that finally comes out is not what people thought their anecdotes were about.

Alice Munro

I have long felt that any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has just put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae or banana split.

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr