Gabriel Garcia Marquez Quotes

If you want to be a writer, I have two pieces of advice. One is to be a reader. I think that's one of the most important parts of learning to write. The other piece of advice is 'Just do it!' Don't think about it, don't agonize, sit down and write.

The truth is I tried to write for years and I wasn't very good.

A lot of my close friends had tolerantly washed their hands of the whole idea of me writing a book. They had said to themselves, "I don't know what he's doing."

At a tender age, I commandeered half a quire of foolscap from my father's desk and sat down to write a book. ...I had observed onprinted fly leaves the words "By the author of, etc." ...So under the title of my prospective work I wrote: By the author of "Les Miserables," "The Woman in White," "Dombey and Son," "Tom Brown's Schooldays" and "Our Life in the Highlands," the last-named being an opus of good Queen Victoria. I had not read all these works but they existed on our bookshelves, and I hoped to produce something worthy of comparison.

Authors are influenced by everything they've ever read. If you've read widely enough, it helps you create your own mix.

Writing is more important than being a writer.

Of all the ways of acquiring books, writing them oneself is regarded as the most praiseworthy method.

I've been writing since I was six years old. It's hard to imagine stopping. I would hate to think that I've already written my best book.

If you're writing, you're a writer. If you're talking about it or thinking about it, I'm not so sure. Writing is ninety-eight percent work and two percent magic.

It's just the garbage in/garbage out trick. If you're not taking any fiction in, good or bad, then how can you be spitting any back out (good or bad)? I can't even imagine trying to write without reading. Really, I can hardly write a novel at all if I'm not reading just book after book.

I'm not particularly inventive. If you left me in а room and told me to write a novel, I wouldn't be able to do it. But if you gave me two years in a public library around the corner, I could. It all comes from sort of mixing the true and the invented. I'm not a fabulist. I'm more of a reporter.

Beginning writers must appreciate the prerequisites if they hope to become writers. You pay your dues - which takes years.

To read and to write. Some writers have to be told to write. They think their job is to meet agents and have experiences and they can just be rich and famous. Their job is to write. Some really don't realize that. And you can't write unless you read.

O God, let me write books! Please, God, let me write books!

Books are great for if you want to work on the craft of writing for yourself, or, you know, to write novels or indie films, stuff like that.

A little talent is a good thing to have if you want to be a writer. But the only real requirement is the ability to remember every scar.

Perhaps one would be wise when young even to avoid thinking of oneself as a writer - for there's something a little stopped and satisfied, too healthy, in that. Better to think of writing, of what one does as an activity, rather than an identity - to write, I write; we write; to keep the calling a verb rather than a noun; to keep working at the thing, at all hours, in all places, so that your life does not become a pose, a pornography of wishing.

A man starts upon a sudden, takes Pen, Ink, and Paper, and without ever having had a thought of it before, resolves within himself he will write a Book; he has no Talent at Writing, but he wants fifty Guineas.

The novelist screws up his courage in order to invest another two or three years in another attempt to float a boat of original design upon an invented ocean.

I write the books that I'm compelled to and I definitely learn things about the world when I write them, and I hope that other people get something out of them, enjoy them, see the world differently when they're done.

Pay attention to your passions. They are the key to starting and finishing the book you are meant to write. I don't believe in talent. I believe in passion.

I've lost my writing skills since college. I couldn't write a book. It would take a long time.

I think the first thing - if you want to be a writer - the first thing you need to do is write. Which sounds like an obvious piece of advice. But so many people have this feeling they want to be a writer and they love to read but they don't actually write very much. The main part of being a writer, though, is being profoundly alone for hours on end, uninterrupted by email or friends or children or romantic partners and really sinking into the work and writing. That's how I write. That's how writing gets done.

A writer needs three things, experience, observation, and imagination, any two of which, at times any one of which, can supply the lack of the others.

I struggle with confidence, every time. I’m never completely sure I can write another book. Maybe my scope is too grand, my questions too hard, surely readers won’t want to follow me here. A novel is like a cathedral, it knocks you down to size when you enter into it.