Writer Gallery

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Writer Gallery

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

C. J. Cherryh

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

It begins with a character, usually, and once he stands up on his feet and begins to move, all I can do is trot along behind him with a paper and pencil, trying to keep up long enough to put down what he says and does.

William Faulkner

The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.

Thomas Jefferson

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

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

M. K. Simmons

Writing has laws of perspective, of light and shade, just as painting does, or music. If you are born knowing them, fine. If not, learn them. Then rearrange the rules to suit yourself.

Truman Capote Quote

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

Matthew Arnold

The character that lasts is an ordinary guy with some extraordinary qualities.

Raymond Chandler

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

There are three primal urges in human beings: Food, sex, and rewriting someone else’s play.

Romulus Linney

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

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

The first chapter sells the book; the last chapter sells the next book.

Mickey Spillane

I do not over-intellectualize the production process. I try to keep it simple: Tell the damned story.

Tom Clancy

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

Biography should be written by an acute enemy.

Arthur Balfour

The road to ignorance is paved with good editors.

George Bernard Shaw

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

You can always edit a bad page. You can’t edit a blank page.