Nathan Englander Quotes

There are many ways to go about a story. And if you give yourself some formal constraints, it just makes the job so much - maybe 'easier' isn't the right word, but because you know your boundaries, you can just play within those boundaries much more, so it's much more fun to do.

You can be imaginative, you have the technology to convert your vision, you have the freedom to write the kind of stories you want to tell beyond the set formulas. Also, you have varied platforms to tell different kinds of stories.

I like that original romance of having a pen and a legal pad and going anywhere in the world and being able to write a novel with just those two things.

My instinct is to absolutely recoil when talking about writing in a mechanistic way. Nothing could be dumber than writing a film or TV script based on prescriptions, on other peoples' ideas of what character should be.

The writer can choose what he writes about but he cannot choose what he is able to make live.

I have seen too many screenwriters of promise become formula addicts and slaves to stop watch structure. Spend that time watching movies, reading screenplays, reading plays, and most importantly - write from your gut.

If you set out to write an adjective novel, you're setting out to write a mediocre novel; your allegiance is to the adjective, not to the story, and then that just sucks all the joy right out of it.

I am a comic writer, which means I get to slay the dragons, and shoot the bull.

Creating fantasy is a very personal thing, but you can't take the process too personally.

Being an author is fun. It's a great job, because I can stay up as late as I want, and if I feel like taking the day off, I do it. Plus, I get to make up silly stories and draw pictures all day.

I've tried very hard and I've never found any resemblance between the people I know and the people in my novels.

What I'm trying to do is to write a story. If you take something from it, that's wonderful; if you don't, that's wonderful as well.

A story is a story is a story. The only difference is in the techniques you bring to bear. There are always limitations on what you can and can't do. But I enjoy that. Just like when you write a sonnet or haiku, there are rules you have to abide by. And to me, playing within the rules is the fun part. It keeps the brain fresh.

In TV writing, I felt like Gulliver being tied down by the Lilliputians. There's so much more freedom in fiction writing.

Being a fiction writer makes you someone who works with irresponsibility.

Working within the limitations of the shared world generally made the writing easier, because I didn't have to invent any of the characters or background, which is usually the hardest part.

When I lock myself up to write, I cannot allow myself to think about the censor or the reviewer or anyone but my characters and their story!

When you're a writer and you're an adult, that's something you crave - that limitless imagination and love for worlds that don't exist that you can create.

I don't know what that line is between fiction and non-fiction that other people have in their minds, but to me, when I'm writing, it's just like whatever the next sentence should be is the next sentence. It's not this artificial division.

In the most self-protective of ways, I don't think about the reader when I'm writing - I just think about the story.

Being a writer is great because you get to come up with stuff.

I wouldn't like to be a character in one of my books!

For me, inspiration isn't a sort of spark which lights the fire of the story. It's more like a thread, one of many, which you can tease out of a story once it's written, if you feel so inclined.

You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children.

All fiction becomes autobiographical when the author has true talent.