writers

I have one word to say upon the subject of profound writers, who are grown very numerous of late; and I know very well the judicious world is resolved to list me in that number. I conceive therefore, as to the business of being profound, that it is with writers as with wells; a person with good eyes may see to the bottom of the deepest, provided any water be there; and often, when there is nothing in the world at the bottom, besides dryness and dirt, though it be but a yard and half under ground, it shall pass however for wondrous deep, upon no wiser a reason than because it is wondrous dark.

I wonder if that's the perennial story of writers: you find the true light, you lose the true light, you find it again. And maybe again.

I was a woman and did not yet think of myself as a writer. I was a mapmaker.

Aren't we all waiting to be read by someone, praying that they'll tell us that we make sense?

You could use a moth like that as a symbol in a novel, but it was trite, wasn__ it? The old moth-to-the-flame image had been used and used again. It was the stuff of amateur poetry. And she, having so little experience crafting a story, would be the most in danger of falling into trite approaches. If she wrote a novel, it probably would be about her father. And the male Luna moth would haunt its pages. Everyone would recognize the work as that of a first novelist. __he wrote about herself through the lens of her father.__he really good novelists, Laura thought, put their fathers, and maybe their mothers too, deeper into the stories. Which, she suddenly thought, might redeem Melville just the littlest bit.

...bow to genius, but to the authority of that genius - not the display of talent...

Write, write, write! Get your you-know-what in the chair and write more books: write the books of your heart and don__ let stress steal your joy.

Children's reading and children's thinking are the rock-bottom base upon which this country will rise. Or not rise. In these days of tension and confusion, writers are beginning to realize that books for children have a greater potential for good or evil than any other form of literature on earth.

In that moment, Dan was reminded why he wanted to write in the first place. It was the same reason anybody does anything -- to impress women.(Jeremy Goodwin, Sports Night)

It is the writer's job to craft a story so compelling that strangers will pay to hear it.

A writer__ brain is full of little gifts, like a piñata at a birthday party. It__ also full of demons, like a piñata at a birthday party in a mental hospital. The truth is, it__ demons that keep a tortured writer__ spirit alive, not Tootsie Rolls. Sure they__l give you a tiny burst of energy, but they won__ do squat for your writing. So treat your demons with the respect they deserve, and with enough prescriptions to keep you wearing pants.

She meant you have to live a story for a time.''And?''And then you can write it, in time. What have you lived?''Kind of a personal question for Twitterland.''Kind of the perfect question to answer in fiction.

To write a poem you must have a streak of arrogance-- not in real life I hope. In real life try to be nice. It will save you a hell of a lot of trouble and give you more time to write.

Part fact part fiction is what life is. And it is always a cover story. I wrote my way out.

Sometimes I dream so vividly, so expectantly, I wonder if I'm crazy...

What a feat of transmission: the emotive powers of the book, with no local habitation, pass safely from writer to reader, unmangled by printing and binding and shipping, renewed and available whenever we open it.

Writers should cut as close to the vein as possible. The readers don't want to be covered in your warm sticky blood, but they want to come as close to it as possible.

I sometimes think if I did not write I would be a madwoman. Now I am a sane woman with a lot of mad pages.