It’s not a good idea to try to put your wife into a novel … not your latest wife anyway.
– Norman Mailer
Category: Quotable
Quotable 14
When an honest writer discovers an imposition it is his simple duty to strip it bare and hurl it down from its place of honor, no matter who suffers by it; any other course would render him unworthy of the public confidence.
– Mark Twain
Quotable 13
Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.
– Anton Chekhov
Quotable 12
Your writing will develop more naturally if you resist the temptation, for the time being, to crown yourself Writer and continue simply to think of yourself as someone who is playing around.
– Victoria Nelson
Quotable 11
Don’t imitate me;
it’s as boring
as the two halves of a melon.
– Matsuo Basho
(Translated by Robert Hass)
Quotable 10
Often, when I’m halfway through a picture, I don’t know how the hell I’m going to end it. And then I have to think more carefully, “What would Bugs Bunny do in a situation like this?” In other words, I can’t think of what I would do, or what I think Bugs Bunny should do. I have to think as Bugs Bunny, not of Bugs Bunny.
– Chuck Jones
Quotable 9
Writing is a form of personal freedom. It frees us from the mass identity we see in the making all around us. In the end, writers will write not to be outlaw heroes of some underculture but mainly to save themselves, to survive as individuals.
– Don DeLillo
Quotable 8
Writing fiction is writing life. Except characters don’t go to the bathroom as often.
– Peter Bognanni
Quotable 7
Intellectuals work with words. Questioning the value of basic grammar is like asking whether farmers should know the names of their crops and animals.
– David Mulroy
Quotable 6
If your love is writing books, that’s a passion that’s way outside of the umbrella of income.
– Walter Mosely