Stanislaw Lem Quotes

I had no ghost writers for the books - I wrote every line myself.

To write a book is for all the world like humming a song—be but in tune with yourself, madam, 'tis no matter how high or how low you take it.

A book comes and says, 'Write me.

You have to surrender to your mediocrity, and just write. Because it's hard, really hard, to write even a crappy book. But it's better to write a book that kind of sucks rather than no book at all, as you wait around to magically become Faulkner. No one is going to write your book for you and you can't write anybody's book but your own.

Go where the pleasure is in your writing. Go where the pain is. Write the book you would like to read. Write the book you have been trying to find but have not found. But write. And remember, there are no rules for our profession. Ignore rules. Ignore what I say here if it doesn't help you. Do it your own way. Every writer knows fear and discouragement. Just write.The world is crying for new writing. It is crying for fresh and original voices and new characters and new stories. If you won't write the classics of tomorrow, well, we will not have any.

I came out with a book called The True Secret of Writing: Connecting Life with Language. It's a book that describes how writing is a practice and how my teaching is part of that practice. I direct the writing and create books but underneath, there's always the river of practice happening. No good, no bad. Just do it.

The laws of literary creation are unique; they don't change, and they are the same for everyone everywhere. I mean that you can tell a story that covers three hours of human life or three centuries - it comes to the same thing. Each writer who creates something authentic in a natural way instinctively also creates the technique that suits him.

When I want to read a novel, I write one.

A book, while it is being written, has an intense life of its own which you share.

Like all former thinkers, I'm writing a book.

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.

Write your goddamned book now. The world awaits.

Our passions shape our books, repose writes them in the intervals.

It doesn't really matter who said it - it's so obviously true. Before you can write anything, you have to notice something.

If you want to read a perfect book there is only one way: write it.

It is said, no man can write but one book; and if a man have a defect, it is apt to leave its impression on all his performances.

I thought, if I write a book that is not a retelling of Pride and Prejudice, it's not going to mean that I will not get any criticism. I might as well write the book that I want to write.

No book or poem is ever finished, merely abandoned.

It's not my brain that's writing the book, it's these hands of mine.

If you don't write the book, the book ain't gonna get written.

Readers would email me and say, 'Please write a novel about so-and-so,' but it has to come from yourself and not so much from your readership.

I've never actually even contemplated writing a book or having a book.

I don't want to write formula. I don't want to crank these books out like sausages. Every book is different, which takes a hell of a lot of ingenuity on my part.

You become a great writer by writing.

Anything that I write comes from the soul.