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Now we know why some writers drink!

December 23, 2023May 9, 2025 642

There is a stereotype out there about writers. They’re talented and frustrated and hit the bottle way too often. Maybe the reason some talented writers are frustrated and drink to excess is because of what they’re asked to write. Example:

Why Writers Drink

Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.

E. L. Doctorow

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

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

What I loved most about calling myself a reporter was that it gave me an excuse to show up anyplace.

Jeanette Walls

Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamppost how it feels about dogs.

Christopher Hampton

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

Romulus Linney

Good instincts usually tell you what to do long before your head has figured it out.

Michael Burke

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

Jodi Picoult

If you start with a bang, you won’t end with a whimper.

T.S. Eliot

I get up in the morning, torture a typewriter until it screams, then stop.

Clarence Budington Kelland

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

Roald Dahl

I have a structured songwriting process. I start with the music and try to come up with musical ideas, then the melody, then the hook, and the lyrics come last.

John Legend

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

Tom Clancy

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

E. B. White

No writer has ever yet been known to hang himself as long as he had another chapter left.

Thomas Wolfe

Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards.

Robert A. Heinlein

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

C. J. Cherryh

Critics are people who sit on the mountaintop and look down on the battlefield. When the fighting is finished, they take it upon themselves to come down from the mountain and shoot the survivors.

Robert Altman

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

Edward Albee

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