Liana's picture
Liana from Romania and Texas is reading Naked Lunch December 25, 2011 - 3:38pm

I thought I'd start a thread with famous writers' quotes about writing. Maybe there was a thread like this before, but I haven't seen one recently. This one is from Faulkner's Facebook page:

"(A writer) must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid; and, teaching himself that, forget it forever, leaving no room in his workshop for anything but the old verities and truths of the heart, the old universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed - love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice. Until he does so, he labors under a curse. He writes not of love but of lust, of defeats in which nobody loses anything of value, of victories without hope and, worst of all, without pity or compassion. His griefs grieve on no universal bones, leaving no scars. He writes not of the heart but of the glands.'
--from William Faulkner's speech at the Nobel Banquet at the City Hall in Stockholm, December 10, 1950

Nick Wilczynski's picture
Nick Wilczynski from Greensboro, NC is reading A Dance with Dragons by George R.R. Martin December 25, 2011 - 10:07pm

I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound and stab us. If the book we are reading doesn't wake us up with a blow on the head, what are we reading it for? ...we need the books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us.

-Franz Kafka

aliensoul77's picture
aliensoul77 from a cold distant star is reading the writing on the wall. December 26, 2011 - 2:16am

I love that quote, Nick. 

 

In Heaven, all the interesting people are missing.
- Friedrich Nietzsche

postpomo's picture
postpomo from Canada is reading words words words December 26, 2011 - 8:00am

If there's a book you really want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.  ~Toni Morrison

A critic can only review the book he has read, not the one which the writer wrote.  ~Mignon McLaughlin

Every writer I know has trouble writing.  ~Joseph Heller

True Ease in Writing comes from Art, not Chance,
As those move easiest who have learn'd to dance.
~Alexander Pope

i never think at all when i write
nobody can do two things at the same time
and do them both well
~Don Marquis

 

R.Moon's picture
R.Moon from The City of Champions is reading The Last Thing He Wanted by Joan Didion; Story Structure Architect by Victoria Lynn Schimdt PH.D; Creating Characters by the editors of Writer's Digest December 26, 2011 - 11:01am

The road to Hell is paved with adverbs.

~ Stephen King

avery of the dead's picture
avery of the dead from Kentucky is reading Cipher Sisters December 26, 2011 - 11:03am

^^^  I always knew I was going to hell, I just didn't realize why.

R.Moon's picture
R.Moon from The City of Champions is reading The Last Thing He Wanted by Joan Didion; Story Structure Architect by Victoria Lynn Schimdt PH.D; Creating Characters by the editors of Writer's Digest December 26, 2011 - 11:09am

I know I'm going, but it ain't for adverbs... well, they may be a part of it, but they're low on the list.

Liana's picture
Liana from Romania and Texas is reading Naked Lunch December 26, 2011 - 11:22am

I think the circle of Hell set aside for poor grammar is colder than the one for adverbs (she said grinning evilly?). But hey, better to rule in Hell than serve in Heaven? Milton anybody?

avery of the dead's picture
avery of the dead from Kentucky is reading Cipher Sisters December 26, 2011 - 11:31am

"better to rule in Hell than serve in Heaven"

The original sore loser.

R.Moon's picture
R.Moon from The City of Champions is reading The Last Thing He Wanted by Joan Didion; Story Structure Architect by Victoria Lynn Schimdt PH.D; Creating Characters by the editors of Writer's Digest December 26, 2011 - 11:48am

One of my favorite quotes comes from Anton Lavey. He said: 'If it wasn't for the devil, the Catholic church would be out of business.'

bryanhowie's picture
bryanhowie from FW, ID is reading East of Eden. Steinbeck is FUCKING AMAZING. December 26, 2011 - 7:27pm

I'm reading Mother Night by Kurt Vonnegut and just came across the funniest quote in light of all the plagerism that's been being discovered lately:

Plagiarism is the silliest of misdemanors.  What harm is there in writing what's already been written?  Real originality is a capital crime, often calling for cruel and unusual punishment in advance of the coup de grace.

_'s picture
_ April 6, 2012 - 5:45pm

I'm reading The Killer Inside Me, and the narrator goes right into this before he explains how he's going to kill someone:

In a lot of books I read, the writer seems to go haywire every time he reaches a high point.
He'll start leaving out punctuation and running his words together and babbles about stars flashing and sinking into a deep dreamless sea. And you can't figure out whether the hero's laying his girl or a cornerstone. I guess that kind of crap is supposed to be pretty deep stuff— a lot of the book reviewers eat it up, I notice. But the way I see it is, the writer is just too goddam lazy to do his job. And I'm not lazy, whatever else I am. I'll tell you everything.

Jim Thompson through Lou Ford in The Killer Inside Me.

bryanhowie's picture
bryanhowie from FW, ID is reading East of Eden. Steinbeck is FUCKING AMAZING. April 6, 2012 - 11:38am

Is this christmas thread now an easter thread?  Because I'm much more into Eostre.

“The heart makes dreams seem like ideas.”
― Daniel Woodrell, Winter's Bone

Jose F. Diaz's picture
Jose F. Diaz from Boston is reading Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel April 6, 2012 - 12:40pm

“Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia.”

-E.L. Doctorow

Johnxsaaaq's picture
Johnxsaaaq May 6, 2012 - 11:40pm

Mother's Day is one of the most celebrated Mothers day facebook status events of the year. What's astonishing is that it is being celebrated worldwide.