1,068 Quotes About Writers-on-writing

Fictional characters are made of words, not flesh; they do not have free will, they do not exercise volition. They are easily born, and as easily killed off.

The conditions of writing change absolutely between the first novel and the second: the first is an adventure, the second is a duty. The first is like a sprint which leaves you exhausted and triumphant beside the track. With the second the writer has been transformed into a long-distance runner - the finishing tape is out of sight, at the end of life. He must guard his energies and plan ahead. A long endurance is more exhausting than a sprint, and less heroic.

We have conversations with each other most nights - Sylvia Plath and me!

Written words are always waiting.

Words are the writer’s hocus-pocus, our dark arts and our deception. They’re our charm and our temptation. Sometimes the writer overindulges himself and it gets out of hand, but that’s how we like it, it’s how we’ve ghosted some of our best creations.

I write whenever it suits me. During a creative period I write every day; a novel should not be interrupted.

Art is too often discounted as a secondary priority. The writer is necessary to society.

The task of the artist at any time is uncompromisingly simple — to discover what has not yet been done, and to do it.

Sooner or later every writer evolves his own definition of a story.Mine is: A reflection of life plus beginning and end (life seems not to have either) and a meaning.