263 Quotes by Meg Wolitzer

People say, write what you know, but it's really, write about what obsesses you. Write about what you're thinking about all the time.

It's hard for me to feel bad when I'm writing well.

As a novelist, I feel lucky that I can traffic in nuance. I'm more interested in looking at how things change over time, at how people try and sometimes fail to make meaning out of their lives.

I do want to say the process of writing a novel is riddled with self-doubt and self-loathing.

I don't write autobiographically.

When you have a book out, it's like a period of protracted or concentrated megalomania, and it's really not normal or good for you or any of that.

I think a lot of the dull parts of first drafts come from a kind of over-managing, intrusive writer who wants to direct traffic. The idea of taking out the parts that the reader could infer is very liberating, and it's weirdly part of radicalizing your work: it allows you to go to new places fast.

'Pleasure' is a word I think about a lot, as opposed to 'entertainment.' They are very, very different.

We all want to write the kind of book that we want to read. If you put in the things that you are thinking about and create characters who feel like they could live - at least for me, that's the way I want to write.