If a writer knows enough about what he is writing about, he may omit things that he knows. The dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one ninth of it being above water.

You take a universal concept, something that has been done a million times (because everything has been done a million times), and add a fresh twist to it. Something no one saw coming. But mostly...

The difficulty of literature is not to write, but to write what you mean.

People wonder why you choose certain subjects to write about. The truth is: you don't really. They choose you

You are not responsible for the reader, you're only responsible for what you are writing.

Writing the story of their own life allows the author to parse their story into examinable segments while continuing to engage in the act of communion and creation.

I like writing that puts the needle right into the vein. I don't think, when I'm writing, "Tell a good story" or "find a meaning." I'm thinking phrase by phrase, make it tight, make it good. Get the...

The secret of being a successful writer is - - write. Every writer deserves that chance.

The art of writing is not as solitary as one might think. When it finally dawns on us one day that our task as writers is to share what we know of the human spirit, we suddenly discover that we were...

If you want to be a writer - - stop talking about it! Sit down and write. - Jackie Collins

The nastiest kind of writer is a ghostwriter, who bears people's children in their body for money.

Writers do not find subjects; subjects find them.

You might say, as you tirelessly said of my stories, at least of the adjectives, that I should render the evidence, not render the verdict... {"Conveyance: The Story I would Not Want Bill Wilson To...

"What's so great about writing?" "You can make anything true."

When I write after dark the shades of evening scatter their purple through my prose.

Good novels are written by people who are not frightened.

The joy of writing. The power of preserving. Revenge of a mortal hand.

You can't blame a writer for what the characters say.

Explore the rugged edge of thought. Like grating a carrot, give the paper the colorful coleslaw of your consciousness.

... perhaps the sweetest moment in writing is the arrival of that idea for a book which never has to be written, which is never sullied with a definite shape, which never needs to be exposed to a less...

If you're a writer, the problem is that, when you try to call a halt to thinking about your novel - in - progress, your imagination still keeps going; you can't shut it off.

So what? All writers are unhinged!

The thing to remember when you're writing, is, it's not whether or not what you put on paper is true. It's whether it wakes a truth in your reader. I don't care what literary device you might use, or...

A pencil is a wand and a weapon. Be careful. Protect yourself. It can be glorious.

Though he had spoken of the subject many times, in the silence of his room he added the powerful kind of phrasing that would not have occurred to him as he spoke, because it's origins were in the...

At times, working in big cities far from nature, I have been sick with nesomania, and I think the reason is this: On the islands one has both the time and the inclination to communicate with the stars...

The challenge to writers today, I think, is not to disown any part of our heritage. Whatever our theme in writing, it is old and tried. Whatever our place, it has been visited by the stranger, it will...

No blur of inexactness, no cloud of vagueness, is allowable in good writing; from the first seeing to the last putting down, there must be steady lucidity and uncompromise of purpose.

The first act of insight is throw away the labels. In fiction, while we do not necessarily write about ourselves, we write out of ourselves, using ourselves; what we learn from, what we are sensitive...

Writing is an expression of the writer's own peculiar personality, could not help being so. Yet in reading great works one feels that the finished piece transcends the personal. All writers great and...