Anne Rice Quotes

Some writers - most, I suspect - write in isolation. I think I'd always found that quite difficult.

If you write fiction, you're by yourself. There are certain advantages to that in that you don't have to explain anything to anybody. But when you get in with others who share the loneliness of the whole enterprise, you're not lonely anymore.

I think that with the proliferation of writing programs, people tend to forget that you also have to get used to working alone, and you have to be your own support.

I am a morning writer; I am writing at eight-thirty in longhand and I keep at it until twelve-thirty, when I go for a swim. Then I come back, have lunch, and read in the afternoon until I take my walk for the next day's writing.

People imagine that there are rituals, like lighting candles or sacrificing chickens. They really just want to know what the magic formula is for writing. I inevitably disappoint them by saying you just put your butt in the chair, and you write 500 words a day, and then you get up and repeat it the next morning.

I write every day. I'm always in the process of writing my last book, until the next one.

Try to write at least 500 words a day. You may ditch 499 of them tomorrow, but you will still be moving forward.

I have met so many people who say they've got a book in them, but they've never written a word. To be a writer - this may seem trite, I realize - you have to actually write.

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.

As a writer, I've always been somebody who's been productive and hustled hard.

The main thing about writing is... writing. Sitting your butt down in the chair and doing the work.

People always ask, 'How do you write so many books?' And I say, I work a lot. I work six or seven days a week.

To be a writer, you need to like spending a lot of time by yourself in the company of imaginary people.

I really try to write every day. It's hard, but it's my favorite thing to do, so it's usually not too, too hard.

For me, writing is 75 percent procrastinating and 25 percent actually sitting down and working.

For any writers at all, read everything you can and then put your butt in the chair and write. That's all there is to it.

Luckily I haven't fallen into the trap, which has claimed so many writers, of living from day to day thinking 'Ah, I'll write a book about that.'

Every spare second I would write, somehow. On my lunch hour, too.

I think what I've recognized over the years is that I'm very, very bingey, extremely bingey when it comes to writing.

The point always is to be writing something - it leads to more writing.

I'm pretty disciplined to keep the momentum of a story going by writing everyday, even if it's only a couple paragraphs or a page or two.

Keep writing, because not only does practice improve skill, it gives you more chances to score on the market. I did that for eight years before making my first sale.

I've always been ambidextrous, writing short stories and novels, and I pretty much have been writing a novel and a handful of short stories every year since '91.

If you try to write 1,000 words a day, as I do, after 100 days you'll look up and have a book. It may be a mess, and you may have to revise it 50 times, but you can't revise it if you haven't written it.

There's no path to being a writer that's applicable to everyone. Some young writers have the fortitude to work in a vacuum. For me, it was important to have some sense that my failures weren't unique.