Cynthia Voigt Quotes

Writing a book is incredibly pleasurable, but very solitary. You have total control, but sometimes that can drive you insane.

[On writing:] The most egotistic of occupations, and the most gratifying while it lasts.

Writing a book isn’t an easy process nor is it always enjoyable, but it is one of life’s most satisfying achievements.

Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout with some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.

Our passions shape our books, repose writes them in the intervals.

Each book starts from ashes really. I don't feel that I have this to say or that to say or this story to tell or that story to tell, but I want to be occupied with the writing process while I'm living.

I have been both overpraised and underpraised. I assume by the time I finish writing -- and I plan to go on writing until I'm 90 or gaga -- it will all equal itself out.

I put things down on sheets of paper and stuff them in my pockets. When I have enough, I have a book.

Why does one write these books after all? The drudgery, the misery, the grind, are forgotten everytime; and one launches another, and it seems sheer joy and buoyancy.

The pleasures of writing correspond exactly to the pleasures of reading

A book comes and says, 'Write me.

A good day's writing, when I turn off my computer after I know that I've written okay, or as well as I can write, that's a day well spent.

You have to write the book that wants to be written.

There's a lot of sub-conscious stuff you may write but you don't then suddenly sit down and take out your analytical books and say: I'm determined to find out where this came from. You'd probably be wrong anyway.

I have a huge music library and deliberately choose the piece of music to match the piece I'm writing. So, every book I write has its own "soundtrack."

When I sit down to write a book, I don't ask myself, "How many am I going to sell?"

No book or poem is ever finished, merely abandoned.

You get caught up in a cycle at some point, so I broke the cycle and decided; I'm going to really write a lot of books, because I need to get in touch with that part of myself in order to make more music.

How long does it take to write a good book? All of the years that you've lived.

It's not my brain that's writing the book, it's these hands of mine.

Sometimes I look back and think, "How did I write that? The book is smarter than I am!" I have never written strategically, but rather, followed the dictates of my muse.

The idea for each of the stories in this book came in a moment of belief and was written in a burst of faith, happiness, and optimism. Those positive feelings have their dark analogues, however, and the fear of failure is a long way from the worst of them. The worst - for me, at least - is the gnawing speculation that I may have already said everything that I have to say, and am now only listening to the steady quacking of my own voice because the silence when it stops is just too spooky.

You have to sink way down to a level of hopelessness and desperation to find the book that you can write.

A book, at the same time, also has to do with what I call a buzz in the head. It's a certain kind of music that I start hearing. It's the music of the language, but it's also the music of the story. I have to live with that music for a while before I can put any words on the page. I think that's because I have to get my body as much as my mind accustomed to the music of writing that particular book. It really is a mysterious feeling.

There is nothing more satisfying than having a sentence fall into place in a way you feel is right, and then adding another one and then another one. It's extraordinarily satisfying.