Marguerite Yourcenar Quotes

Translation is entirely mysterious. Increasingly I have felt that the art of writing is itself translating, or more like translating than it is like anything else

I do love translating; it is the pure pleasure of writing without the misery of inventing.

...what I write is smarter than I am. Because I can rewrite it.

I think technique can be taught but I think the only way to learn to write is to read, and I see writing and reading as completely related. One almost couldn't exist without the other.

I wrote my first short story in third grade.

Making sentences is what I do. I mean, the story will come as I write.

No, I have to really focus, especially when I'm writing because I wanna be good at it.

Many, many people can write books. I just happen to be one of them.

I don't read novels, but my semiotics study influenced everything about the way I read and edit and write.

The miracle of turning inklings into thoughts and thoughts into words and words into metal and print and ink never palls for me.

I'm not a writer myself, so I'm forced to try to get what's a sort of an odour or a colour or something I feel in my head from a writer, and that's a... I don't have a recipe for that process. I don't know what it is... it's different every time.

I write my novels in English first; then they are translated into Turkish by professional translators. Then I take their translation and rewrite. So basically, I write the same novel twice.

I've found that writers who don't read really can't write.

We're not just writers; we're readers probably more than anything else. That's how you learn how to write and how you learn to appreciate good writing: by reading.

The best translators slip into the glove of a text and then turn it inside out into another language, and the whole thing comes out looking like a brand-new glove again. I'm completely in awe of this skill, since I happen to be both bilingual and a writer, but nevertheless a lousy translator.

The secret of successful writing lies in striking the right keys on the typewriter.

Writing is hard, but the more you write, and enjoy what you write, the better it gets.

You can only write by putting words on a paper one at a time.

All there is to writing is having ideas. To learn to write is to learn to have ideas.

Writing is above all a question of instinct.

If you ever read one of my books I hope you'll think it looks so easy. In fact, I wrote those chapters 20 times over, and over, and over, and that if you want to write at a good level, you'll have to do that too.

No one can help you write. No one can teach you how to write.

Writing is a subtle art that is reached mostly by self-discovery and experimentation.

If there's any single talent a writer needs, it's persistence. If you can keep at your writing and you can learn as you write, you can tell any story you want to tell.

I tend to write a lot, which I think is the secret to being prolific.