Roald Dahl Quotes

I never leave a sentence or a paragraph until I'm satisfied with it.

Writing is rewriting; rewriting is writing - from the first crossed-out word in the first sentence to the last word inserted above a caret, that most helpful handwritten stroke.

It's not hard to write poorly. But to write something good, it has to be revised.

I can't understand how anyone can write without rewriting everything over and over again.

By the time I am nearing the end of a story, the first part will have been reread and altered and corrected at least one hundred and fifty times. I am suspicious of both facility and speed. Good writing is essentially rewriting. I am positive of this.

If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.

If you re-read your work, you can find on re-reading a great deal of repetition can be avoided by re-reading and editing.

I've never been a believer in the word-count thing. I write slowly and tinker with the words and the word order, and I throw a lot of stuff out.

I write and rewrite and rewrite and write and like to turn in what I think is finished work.

Writing for me is largely about rewriting.

Most of my work consisted of crossing out. Crossing out was the secret of all good writing.

Revision is the heart of writing. Every page I do is done over seven or eight times.

I work very hard on the writing, writing and rewriting and trying to weed out the lumber.

Good writing is good writing, but that doesn't mean you can't orchestrate it or tweak it.

I'm not a very good writer, but I'm an excellent rewriter.

When I write something, I constantly rewrite.

The first draft is usually junk. You have to work on it seven to eight times.

Writing is revision. All prose responds to work.

Writing is rewriting what you have rewritten.

Rewriting is when writing really gets to be fun. . . . In baseball you only get three swings and you're out. In rewriting, you get almost as many swings as you want and you know, sooner or later, you'll hit the ball.

Though I revise constantly as I write, I will usually revise much of the work again after I've reached the ending.

I rewrite a great deal. I'm always fiddling, always changing something. I'll write a few words - then I'll change them. I add. I subtract. I work and fiddle and keep working and fiddling, and I only stop at the deadline.

When I say writing, O believe me, it is rewriting that I have chiefly in mind.

The advice I would offer to any writer is that even when you think you have revised your book to the point where you cannot look at it again, it is time to sit down and revise it some more.

Write. Write. Write. Learn how to revise. No story is perfect straight from the keyboard.