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...

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

Work on a computer that is disconnected from the Internet.

Zadie Smith

A writer is a world trapped in a person.

Victor Hugo

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

Edward Albee

Read a thousand books and your words will flow like a river.

Lisa See

It’s an accepted fact that all writers are crazy; even the normal ones are weird.

William Goldman

When writing a novel, that’s pretty much entirely what life turns into: “House burned down. Car stolen. Cat exploded. Did 1,500 easy words, so all in all it was a pretty good day.”

Neil Gaiman

If the sex scene doesn’t make you want to do it — whatever it is they’re doing — it hasn’t been written right.

Sloan Wilson

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

Steven Bochco

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

Roald Dahl

Editor: A person employed by a newspaper, whose business it is to separate the wheat from the chaff, and to see that the chaff is printed.

Elbert Hubbard

A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.

G.K. Chesterton

Plot is, I think, the good writer’s last resort and the dullard’s first choice.

Stephen King

It is perfectly okay to write garbage — as long as you edit brilliantly.

C. J. Cherryh

In Hollywood, the woods are full of people that learned to write but evidently can’t read. If they could read their stuff, they’d stop writing.

Will Rogers

No one can write decently who is distrustful of the reader’s intelligence or whose attitude is patronizing.

E. B. White

I write the last line, and then I write the line before that. I find myself writing backwards for a while, until I have a solid sense of how that ending sounds and feels. You have to know what your voice sounds like at the end of the story, because it tells you how to sound when you begin.

John Irving

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

The road to ignorance is paved with good editors.

George Bernard Shaw

If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all.