Will Self Quotes

The inspiration to write? Perhaps it's not so much inspiration, as a NEED to write. I get itchy and guilty and dissatisfied when I haven't written for a while. Ideas come to me and need to be written down.

Writing is like a 'lust,' or like 'scratching when you itch.' Writing comes as a result of a very strong impulse, and when it does come, I, for one, must get it out.

The best books come from someplace inside. You don't write because you want to, but because you have to.

All stories I write are compulsive. Anything I've ever written was because I don't have a choice. I write stories because I can't wait to tell it, I can't wait to see how it ends.

Being a writer was never a choice, it was an irresistible compulsion.

Writing has never been a driving force within me.

I'm one of the writers that would die if I didn't say what I needed to say. For me, it's a matter of survival to write.

It's painful to consider anything but writing.

Ninety-five percent of all writers who write do not get published, but 100 percent of all writers write because they have a voice in their head. The vast majority of writers simply write because they have to.

I write about what haunts me, and I write the books I myself am dying to read. I love it. I can't think of anything I'd rather do.

I never, ever decided that I had to write a novel because, to me, there's no such decision that ought to be made. It's only something that I felt compelled to do, and it began to evolve.

I almost never write because I want something from my audience. Almost everything I've ever written, I've written because I feel like I have to write this or I'll die. Like, this has to come out of me.

When a real artist creates something, it has to be a necessity, the only way he can say something.

I tell aspiring writers that you have to find what you must write. When you find it, you will know, because the subject matter won’t let you go. It’s not enough to write simply because you think it would be neat to be published. You have to be compelled to write. If you’re not, nothing else that you do matters.

My novels come from within me; they are things I feel I want to do.

Not that painting would have been a release. The reason for doing it is the desire to create. I've got to do it! I've seen that, I can still remember it, I've got to paint it.

If the urge to write should ever leave me, I want that day to be my last.

I'm just going to write because I cannot help it.

It was really written as most, I think, books are by writers - for themselves. There was something that just had to be written, in a way that it had to be written. If you know what I mean.

I always write the pieces I want to write.

I wanted to write.

I think that like all writers - and if any writer disagrees with this, then he is not a writer - I write primarily for myself.

I think something I've been drawn to about the people I work with is that they seem to be - like me - people who are a little insane, and have to make music. It's not a choice they're making for the sake of vanity - like it's cool to be in a band.

You have to first be a writer and somebody who loves to write. If I couldn't travel, I would still write.

Well, writing was what I wanted to do, it was always what I wanted to do. I had novels to write so I wrote them.