Renata Adler Quotes

If you want to be a writer, just write. There's no magic to it.

I'm not one of those writers I learned about who get up in the morning, put a piece of paper in their typewriter machine and start writing. That I've never understood.

I'm a writer and writers either have good memories or nothing at all.

I used to get up and write every day, even if I wasn't working on a specific thing. Now, when I have a thing I'm in the middle of, I do that, but when I'm not, time can go by when I'm not writing at all.

I've always prided myself on my discipline as a writer. I do it like a job. I get up in the morning and go to my desk.

Capote wrote every day. He said that's the only way, you have to sit down every day and do it.

Don't fall into the trap of having to have everything perfect to write or wait until the mood strikes you. If you want it as a job, treat it like a job, and just as you don't go to work only when you feel like it, you have to condition yourself to sit and write even when the ideas don't flow.

A writer who isn't writing is asking for trouble.

I did that for 40 years or more. I never had any writer's block. I got up in the morning, sat down at the typewriter - now, computer - lit up a cigarette.

I don't believe in writer's block or waiting for inspiration. If you're a writer, you sit down and write.

I've never had writer's block.

There's nothing romantic about my work... I don't believe in inspiration. I believe that you get to your desk, you stay there, you work, you think of nothing else. You write and you write, and in the end, you write something good.

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.

Writer advice... Write. Finish things. Go for walks. Read a lot & outside your comfort zone. Stay interested. Daydream. Write.

Don't wait for the muse. She has a lousy work ethic. Writers just write.

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.

To say, "Well, I write when I really get into it" is a bunch of bull. Put the paper in the typewriter, stare at it a long time, get snowblindness if you have to, but write something.

You can't be a writer if you don't write, it's just that simple.

An author who waits for the right 'mood' will soon find that 'moods' get fewer and fewer until they cease altogether.

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

We have this idea that we need to be in the mood to write. We don't.

A poet or novelist will invent interruptions to avoid long consecutive days at the ordained page; and of these the most pernicious are other kinds of writing -- articles, lectures, reviews, a wide correspondence.

The hardest period for a writer is the period in-between writing. That's when you can go crazy if you don't allow the creative juices to flow.

I am always writing. It is not always good, but if I am writing, I am usually happy.

I write every day... I never get ideas unless I'm actually writing. Ideas I get in the shower don't do me any good.