Because every
story begins
with words

video memoir writing professionals

Video: Memoir writing professionals.

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

Matthew Arnold

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

Biography should be written by an acute enemy.

Arthur Balfour

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

Christopher Hampton

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 have long felt that any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has just put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae or banana split.

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr

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

Roald Dahl

Just don’t be boring!

Robert Liebmann

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

Every writer with half a brain knows to surround himself or herself with editors who are smarter, far more articulate and infinitely better looking.

Chris Claremont

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

Oscar Wilde

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

E. B. White

The fact is, I don’t know where my ideas come from. Nor does any writer. The only real answer is to drink way too much coffee and buy yourself a desk that doesn’t collapse when you beat your head against it.

Douglas Adams

Do not place a photograph of your favorite author on your desk, especially if the author is one of the famous ones who committed suicide.

Roddy Doyle

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

Joseph Conrad

Everybody walks past a thousand story ideas every day. The good writers are the ones who see five or six of them. Most people don’t see any.

Orson Scott Card

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

To me, movies and music go hand in hand. When I’m writing a script, one of the first things I do is find the music I’m going to play for the opening sequence.

Quentin Tarantino

Keep a small can of WD-40 on your desk — away from any open flames — to remind yourself that if you don’t write daily, you will get rusty.

George Singleton

I’m writing a book. I’ve got the page numbers done.

Stephen Wright