You’ve heard of writer’s block. But have you heard of reader’s block?

05 Aug, 2019

I found this in the August 2nd, 2019, New York Times. Fun reading...if you're not suffering from reader's block: Reader's block article

You’ve heard of writer’s block. But have you heard of reader’s block?

August 5, 2019May 9, 2025

I found this in the August 2nd, 2019, New York Times. Fun reading…if you’re not suffering from reader’s block: Read More...

Writers aren’t people exactly. Or, if they’re any good, they’re a whole lot of people trying so hard to be one person.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Books aren’t written, they’re rewritten. Including your own. It is one of the hardest things to accept, especially after the seventh rewrite hasn’t quite done it.

Michael Crichton

I don’t care if a reader hates one of my stories, just as long as he finishes the book.

Roald Dahl

Work on a computer that is disconnected from the Internet.

Zadie Smith

It is only natural to pattern yourself after someone. But you can’t just copy someone. If you like someone’s work, the important thing is to be exposed to everything that person has been exposed to.

Bob Dylan

If you wait for inspiration to write, you’re not a writer. You’re a waiter.

Dan Poynter

Anecdotes don’t make good stories. Generally, I dig down underneath them so far that the story that finally comes out is not what people thought their anecdotes were about.

Alice Munro

You may be able to take a break from writing, but you won’t be able to take a break from being a writer.

Stephen Leigh

Reading and weeping opens the door to one’s heart, but writing and weeping opens the window to one’s soul.

M. K. Simmons

Do you know what a playwright is? A playwright is someone who lets his guts hang out on the stage.

Edward Albee

Biography should be written by an acute enemy.

Arthur Balfour

It always comes down to characters, and individual stories about courage.

Steven Bochco

I haven’t got 10 rules that guarantee success, though I promise I’d share them if I did. The truth is that I found success by stumbling off alone in a direction most people thought was a dead end, breaking all the 1990s shibboleths about children’s books in the process.

J.K. Rowling

A true author, no matter the medium, is an artist with godlike knowledge of his subject, and the proof of his authorship is that his pages smack of authority.

Robert McKee

My own experience is that once a story has been written, one has to cross out the beginning and the end. It is there that we authors do most of our lying.

Anton Chekhov

Substitute “damn” every time you’re inclined to write “very”; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.

Mark Twain

If you haven’t got an idea, start a story anyway. You can always throw it away, and maybe by the time you get to the fourth page you will have an idea, and you’ll only have to throw away the first three pages.

William C. Gault

A writer without interest or sympathy for the foibles of his fellow man is not conceivable as a writer.

Joseph Conrad

Have something to say, and say it as clearly as you can. That is the only secret.

Matthew Arnold

If my poetry aims to achieve anything, it’s to deliver people from the limited ways in which they see and feel.