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

August 5, 2019May 9, 2025 787

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

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

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

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

Jeanette Walls

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

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

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

Edward Albee

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 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 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

Work on a computer that is disconnected from the Internet.

Zadie Smith

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

Michael Burke

A writer is a world trapped in a person.

Victor Hugo

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

Christopher Hampton

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

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

Steven Bochco

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

Matthew Arnold

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

William Goldman

The road to ignorance is paved with good editors.

George Bernard Shaw

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.