Meg Wolitzer Quotes

The good thing about writing a novel is that you're creating an imaginary world and can take a break when you need to.

It is very enjoyable, writing a story. You get this idea. It takes hold of you. And then you spend day and night thinking about how to do it. And then you do it. And much later, you think, 'Oh, yes. That's an interesting question.'

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.

Writing a novel is not merely going on a shopping expedition across the border to an unreal land: it is hours and years spent in the factories, the streets, the cathedrals of the imagination.

I like that original romance of having a pen and a legal pad and going anywhere in the world and being able to write a novel with just those two things.

I tried almost every genre. I decided at 14 I wanted to be a writer. I think I had to wait until they invented word processors to get serious about it, but I really tried every genre, and fantasy was the one that gave me the scope to do the most... you could play with worlds more.

There are certainly times when my own everyday life seems to retreat so the life of the story can take me over. That is why a writer often needs space and time, so that he or she can abandon ordinary life and 'live' with the characters.

If I had a plot that was all set in advance, why would I want go through the agony of writing the novel? A novel is a kind of exploration and discovery, for me at any rate.

As long as you have ideas, you can keep going. That's why writing fiction is so much fun: because you're moving people about, and making settings for them to move in, so there's always something there to keep working on.

The writer can choose what he writes about but he cannot choose what he is able to make live.

I would, however, start writing fiction about 10 years before I actually did, because it's such great fun to do, many times more creative than nonfiction.

You cannot write a book unless it is totally inhabiting your imagination and you are totally engrossed with it. Which is a kind word for obsession.

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.

What I'm trying to do is to write a story. If you take something from it, that's wonderful; if you don't, that's wonderful as well.

I'm totally in control of this tiny, tiny world right there at the typewriter.

Nothing beats novel writing because it's complete expression of you. You just control everything. Not even a movie director has that level of control.

I get to do what I love every day. I get to crawl into someone else's head and I love that.

I am a novelist turned temporary adventurer, and I chose to write television, movies and plays for much the same reason that Henry Morgan selected the Spanish Main for his peculiar - and not dissimilar - sphere of operations.

I started writing to please myself, a story I would like to read, and that is still true.

For me, writing a novel is like having a dream. Writing a novel lets me intentionally dream while I'm still awake. I can continue yesterday's dream today, something you can't normally do in everyday life.

Being a fiction writer makes you someone who works with irresponsibility.

I pick up my pen. It flows. A building appears. There it is. There is nothing more to say.

I don't usually think of my writing as a 'challenge' because I enjoy the process so much. I suppose that's what's helped me to avoid 'writer's block' all these years.

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.

Novel-writing is, for the novelist, a game of let's pretend.