Ali Smith Quotes

I write what I don't know. It's way more interesting.

The possibilities are infinite with new writing; every time you open a new script, there's no limit to what it might contain.

Dig into life with wild roving abandon, opening your mind to the delicious possibilities that perplex the mind, entice the heart, and excite the spirit.

I like to sit down every day and not know where the book is going. I have no idea where the book is going to go or how it's going to end as I'm writing it.

When I try to write I try to write something different every time. That's the challenge.

Once, the world was full of mysteries, some of them frightening, some of them wonderful, some of them merely fascinating. Now, it can be a banal and predictable place, the tracks of daily life so well-beaten and defined, our culture awash with the imbecile obvious, our existence suffocating in safety. But mysteries remain.

I can create countries just as I can create the actions of my characters. That is why a lot of travel seems to me a waste of time.

I never know what I'm going to write next, and when I think I do I usually turn out to be mistaken.

I think I write about things that are mysterious to me.

As long as there are things to wonder about, there are stories to be written about them. That makes me happy, because writing about things seems to be my thing.

I'm driven to go out and find new things to write about.

If you are open-minded and you let the universe come in, you never know where things might go.

I think the most rewarding part for me is kind of not knowing where the story's going next, and then finding out and being blown away by it.

I've learned that borders are where the actual ends, but also where the imagination and the story begins.

Writing will be like a journey, every word a footstep that takes me further into undiscovered land.

Find the key emotion; this may be all you need know to find your short story.

People say to write about what you know. I'm here to tell you, no one wants to read that, cos you don't know anything. So write about something you don't know. And don't be scared, ever.

When I write, I never know the endings. What I think works in [my] stories is the fact that when I write, I really want to find out what is going on-I'm writing for myself as a reader. It's like when you dream a dream. I want to know what's behind the door. If I navigate, it's from a place that's totally intuitive.

Reading makes me want to write my own books, and just trying to understand what I see in the world around me makes me want to figure things out.

It’s not just the adage ‘write what you know,’ it’s about gathering up all of the knowledge and experience you’ve collected up to now to help you dive into the things you don’t know.

There are no such things as limits to growth, because there are no limits on the human capacity for intelligence, imagination, and wonder.

The old adage is, 'Write what you know.' But if you only do that, your work becomes claustrophobic. I say, 'Write what you want to know.'

There is that romanticized idea of what a bookstore can be, what a library can be, what a shop can be. And to me, they are that. These are places that open doors into other worlds if only you're open to them.

I think I have sort of gravitated toward issues that I don't know the answers to, because that's what's more interesting for me to write.

I think the foundation of everything in my life is wonder.