962 Quotes About Writing-life

I never had any doubts about my abilities. I knew I could write. I just had to figure out how to eat while doing this.[Cormac McCarthy's Venomous Fiction, New York Times, April 19, 1992]

Writing starts with living.—Rumors of Water: Thoughts on Creativity & Writing

Collaborating on a film script involves two people sitting in a room separated by the silence of two minds working together.

I must write now and quickly, before I begin to prefer the perfect version that lives in my head.

Literature is the ditch I'm going to die in. It's still the thing I care most about.

When reading a book, one hopes it doesn’t turn into a painful process. Predictable is bad enough. Laborious is acceptable if the labor produces fruit. But with painfully bad writing, all one can do is grab a hatchet, slice off its head, and bury it.

I’m a husband, a father of two, a full-time teacher, and so my writing process mostly involves sitting down and writing, any chance I get, anywhere I am, for as long as life will let me. Music helps. Good light helps. I love quiet and coffee when I can get them. But I can write on a bus, in a dentist office’s waiting room, in bed with a clip-on booklight, almost anywhere. And I try to do at least some every single day.

Write a little. Read a little. Dick around on the internet. Post something to Pinterest or Facebook. Text a friend. Write some more. Curse it because it's shit. Write some more. Repeat.

Writers are often given the gift of being spectacularly unhappy, so that they can record the full depth of feeling.