Generals who can write always make me nervous.
My dad is a great writer. Naturally talented, naturally charming. He embodies that back-in-the-day cool.
They say you hit your stride as a writer at about 50. I'm hoping to do that.
As a rule, one must write a great many words before one learns to write well.
Writing is a trade ... which is learned by writing.
A.J. Liebling, one of my heroes, used to say that he could write better than anyone who wrote faster, and faster than anyone who could write better. I'm one nine-hundredth as good as Liebling, but that principle may slightly apply.
You only learn to be a better writer by actually writing.
My preference is for really good writing, and I just really don't care where it is.
My seventeen years of teaching inform my sense of audience in every line I write.
Graham Greene at 82 years old was still writing, and I don't think anyone can deny the force, the expertise, and the unique quality of his writing, if you take his complete oeuvre.
An editor is a person who knows more about writing than writers do but who has escaped the terrible desire to write.
Who is writing these screenwriting books? Not actually writing for the studios in Hollywood. These are people that have one or a half of a credit on maybe one movie, or none. So they're all theoretical.
I'm here because of what I write. Obviously, I must know something.
Learn to write well, or not to write at all.
I know how to write fiction well.
Writing ... is a profession that can only be learned by writing.
I think of myself as a real writer, not just someone who dabbles in it, so I deserve some credit.
I have been an author for 20 years and an ass for 55.
I've got America's best writer for $300 a week.
There are plenty of clever young writers. But there is too much genius, not enough talent.
Writing's all I know. Frankly, I've never been able to do anything else.
I was an English major in college, I went to a creative-writing program, and all my life, I really read and thought about fiction as a craft and an art form. I feel like I know a lot about it, and can trust my instincts.
I believe my voice is pretty much the same. I've written 75 books, so I'm better at it now than I was earlier in my career.
Bausch is a wonderful storyteller. He's a mature writer who has a lot of confidence in the quality of character. He doesn't need to hook you with a sneaky plot and zany characters.
Experience is an author's most valuable asset; experience is the thing that puts the muscle and the breath and the warm blood into the book he writes.
