The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say.
– Anaïs Nin
Category: Quotable
Quotable 365
The more you shy away from the material, the worse it gets. You’re better off pushing through and ending up with 30 dead pages you can correct later than just sitting there with nothing.
– Danielle Steel
Quotable 364
Some days, you’re just trying to keep moving the cursor to the right.
– Christopher McQuarrie
Quotable 363
There is always a sheet of paper. There is always a pen. There is always a way out.
– H.L. Mencken
Quotable 362
With every novel I write, a line of discarded pages will stretch for miles behind me.
– Margo Orlando Littell
Quotable 361
Read like mad. But try to do it analytically – which can be hard, because the better and more compelling a novel is, the less conscious you will be of its devices. It’s worth trying to figure those devices out, however: they might come in useful in your own work.
– Sarah Waters
Quotable 360
When I finish a first draft, it’s always just as much of a mess as it’s always been. I still make the same mistakes every time.
– Michael Chabon
Quotable 359
Prose is architecture, not interior decoration.
– Ernest Hemingway
Quotable 358
If writers had to wait until their precious psyches were completely serene there wouldn’t be much writing done.
– William Styron
Quotable 357
Slowly, slowly, I accumulate sentences. I have no idea what I’m doing until suddenly it reveals itself, almost done.
– Sarah Manguso