Chaim Potok Quotes

I like to sit down every day and not know where the book is going. I have no idea where the book is going to go or how it's going to end as I'm writing it.

I never know how a novel is going to end, because you don't really know what's going to be at the bottom of a novel until you excavate it.

I never know as a writer when I set out into a novel where it's going to take me.

I throw everything I have into whatever story I'm writing - and so there's something immensely gratifying about finishing one piece and then starting fresh with a new setting, time period and cast of characters, getting to see the world through a completely different lens each time.

No one knows how to write a novel until it's been written.

It's a discovery of a story when I write a book, a case of inching ahead on each page and discovering what's beyond in the darkness, beyond where you're writing.

Stories surge up out of nowhere, and if they feel compelling, you follow them. You let them unfold inside you and see where they are going to lead.

Writing 'when you find me,' it really exposed me to a way of putting together a story I hadn't thought of.

SOON was the first novel where I used a rough outline. Usually I have characters and an idea and write as a process of discovery. Like working without a net.

I like to jot down ideas on the back of envelopes and to recognise the potential value in small things. I also like the freedom to think without feeling compelled to write too early. Stories are often better if we can hold back and get to know the characters and the sounds of language.

I started writing morning pages just to keep my hand in, you know, just because I was a writer and I didn't know what else to do but write. And then one day as I was writing, a character came sort of strolling in and I realized, Oh my God, I don't have to be just a screenwriter. I can write novels.

The process of writing a novel is getting to know more about the novel until you know everything about it. And it's been described as a kind of dreamlike state where you're letting the novel make its own shape, and you're putting into it the pleasure of creation, which is intoxicating.

I start with characters, and then I start writing, and then, if I'm lucky, things start to happen.

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

If I knew a story page by page before I started writing it, I just wouldn't do it. The process of discovery is really important for my own enjoyment.

Whenever I write a novel, music just sort of naturally slips in (much like cats do, I suppose).

I start with a character and a situation, but I don't know what's going to happen until I write it. Sometimes things happen that surprise me.

When I start to write, I don't have any plan at all. I just wait for the story to come.

My own books drive themselves. I know roughly where a book is going to end, but essentially the story develops under my fingers. It's just a matter of joining the dots.

I like that it's challenging - that when I'm writing, I feel as if I'm pouring everything I have into the story until there's nothing left and I have to begin thinking about a new world and set of circumstances to research and explore.

I envy those writers who outline their novels, who know where they're going. But I find writing is a process of discovery.

When I wrote my first novel - I was nineteen - I did it very quickly. If you write fast, you feel like you're entering something not yet familiar - a world rather than thoughts about the world.

When I started working on 'Stay With Me,' I thought it would take two years to complete the novel.

I think the most rewarding part for me is kind of not knowing where the story's going next, and then finding out and being blown away by it.

I write linearly without knowing the full story. I discover it as I write it.