“Don’t live with a lover or roommate who doesn’t respect your work.”
“The way to write is to throw your body at the mark when all your arrows are spent.”
“It s hell writing and it s hell not writing. The only tolerable state is having just written.”
“14. I have enjoyed telling people that I am writing a book about blue without actually doing it.”
“Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work.”
“Writers aren’t people exactly. Or, if they’re any good, they’re a whole lot of people trying so hard to be one person.”
“In order to write about life first you must live it.”
“That s why I write, because life never works except in retrospect. You can t control life, at least you can control your version.”
“If something inside of you is real, we will probably find it interesting, and it will probably be universal. So you must risk placing real emotion at the center of your work. Write straight into the emotional center of things. Write toward vulnerability. Risk being unliked. Tell the truth as you understand it. If you’re a writer you have a moral obligation to do this. And it is a revolutionary act—truth is always subversive.”
“I have spent a good many years since
“We are not nouns, we are verbs. I am not a thing - an actor, a writer - I am a person who does things - I write, I act - and I never know what I m going to do next. I think you can be imprisoned if you think of yourself as a noun.”
“If you intend to write as truthfully as you can, your days as a member of polite society are numbered.”
“Can I be blunt on this subject? If you don t have time to read, you don t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.”
“Those who write are writers. Those who wait are waiters.”
“Meggie Folchart: Having writer s block? Maybe I can help. Fenoglio: Oh yes, that s right. You want to be a writer, don t you? Meggie Folchart: You say that as if it s a bad thing. Fenoglio: Oh no, it s just a lonely thing. Sometimes the world you create on the page seems more friendly and alive than the world you actually live in.”
“It s hard for me to believe that people who read very little (or not at all in some cases) should presume to write and expect people to like what they have written.”
“Writing is like breathing, it s possible to learn to do it well, but the point is to do it no matter what.”