Nathalie Sarraute Quotes

If I don't feel like writing today or for a few days, I don't. And I don't think about it. It is not an obligation-it is the greatest privilege.

I think I'm drawn to writing about something which feels intense and important.

Nothing can be as astounding as life. Except for writing. Yes, of course, except for writing, the sole consolation.

I don't know why I started writing. I don't know why anybody does it. Maybe they're bored, or failures at something else.

It's become fashionable these days to say that the writer writes because he is not whole, he has a wound, he writes to heal it, but who cares if the writer is not whole; of course the writer is not whole, or even particularly well.

You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open.

I write as a way of keeping myself going. You build your life around writing, and it's what gets you through. So it's partly just curiosity to see what you can do.

Nothing matters but the writing. There has been nothing else worthwhile... a stain upon the silence.

I veer away from trying to understand why I act. I just know I need to do it.

I guess that in a lot of ways, my writing is more of a character to me than something that I feel personally attached to.

It's hard to draw clear lines between writing and life and I don't think it is necessary to or necessarily good to.

Part of the very impulse of writing for me is actually wanting to get away from myself.

I always write out of a need to read something, rather than a need to write something.

I try to live instinctively. And I guess I've always enjoyed living in a fantasy world, daydreaming.

Like everything, what compels one to put pen to paper is a great question.

An artist is attracted to certain kinds of form without knowing why. You adopt a position intuitively; only later do you attempt to rationalize or even justify it.

I have always thought of myself as a writer, only because I need things to direct, and I can't not write the things that I direct.

The best part of our lives is just every day when we are writing.

Inspiration will always sing; inspiration will never explain.

I think subconsciously or selfishly I knew that I was supposed to do something. It was like a thumping or a throbbing saying, "Yes, this what you've been waiting for." But you're a little dim to those spiritual thoughts when you're dumb like me. So I did have to get a little bit of a kick. I played it for a bunch of people and I think their reactions were warm and deep enough that they gave me the courage to get [the record] out there.

I don't understand what I do, I just know that it's great.

I know certain roles are important to me. I know that I really want to play them. I know I can do a good job. But I can never put into words why.

One writes not by will but by surrender.

The first time I started choreographing was in the dark, in my living room, with the lights completely out, to some popular music on the radio. I put the radio on full blast and I started moving. I didn't know what it looked like. I didn't want to see it... I had to start in the dark.

I believe people instinctively know that about writing, yet people get confused about that when it comes to acting.