Gabrielle Zevin Quotes

I'm gonna write from personal experience, from emotion, from whatever the hell I'm feeling that day.

I know society these days, I know people are wanting to find everything they can to pick things apart, but I have to write from my heart and my experiences, and I fully own them. Those are mine to share.

I write with all my heart

I hate feeling too complacent when I write. I like to be solving new problems.

I think that is the big danger in keeping a diary: you exaggerate everything.

Writing is saying to no one and to everyone the things it is not possible to say to someone.

If I basically view criticism as sort of an interesting form of writing about oneself, an interesting form of autobiography, then I don't feel any pressure to have any kind of authoritative, universal voice. That kind of thing has never interested me.

Now the truth is, writing is a great way to deal with a lot of difficult emotional issues. It can be very therapeutic, but that's best done in your journal, or on your blog if you're an exhibitionist. Trying to put a bunch of *specific* stuff from your personal life into your story usually just isn't appropriate unless you're writing a memoir or a personal essay or something of the sort.

Writing is an act of cherishing... It is an act of love.

When you write from the heart, you not only light the dark path of your readers, you light your own way as well.

If I've got Writer's Block it generally means that I don't have that much to say or something's not quite connecting. I have had Writer's Block a bunch of times and it's generally because I'm not able to write down what I'm feeling basically. Mostly, I just need to be alone really, or be with someone who can bring that out of me.

I do my best to write my way through it. It helps the laughing, reflective part come quicker.

When we write about our lives we respond to them. As we respond to them we are rendered more fluid, more centered, more agile on our own behalf. We are tendered conscious.

What do you know about me, given that I believe in secrecy? ... If I stick where I am, if I don't travel around, like anyone else I make my inner journeys that I can only measure by my emotions, and express very obliquely and circuitously in what I write. ... Arguments from one's own privileged experience are bad and reactionary arguments.

If you would write emotionally, be first unemotional. If you would move your readers to tears, do not let them see you cry.

The shame of being a man - is there any better reason to write?

I come from a place of darkness when I write because I'm always trying to figure things out. It's kind of like my own therapy when I write music. It's me working through my own problems hopefully. And putting it into a song.

Here we write well when we expose frauds and hypocrites. We are great at counting warts and blemishes and weighting feet of clay. In expressing love, we belong among the underdeveloped countries.

Writing poetry is talking to oneself; yet it is a mode of talking to oneself in which the self disappears; and the product's something that, though it may not be for everybody, is about everybody.

I think that if I get into the habit of writing a bit about what happens, or rather doesn't happen, I may lose a little of the sense of isolation and desolation which abides with me. My circumstances allowing of nothing but the ejaculation of one-syllabled reflections, a written monologue by that most interesting being, myself, may have its yet to be discovered consolations.

The novelist must be his own most harsh critic and also his own most loving admirer and about both he must say nothing.

When another blames you or hates you, or people voice similar criticisms, go to their souls, penetrate inside and see what sort of people they are. You will realize that there is no need to be racked with anxiety that they should hold any particular opinion about you.

Write about what you're afraid of.

There are things that you can't do - like writing letters to a part of yourself. To your feet or hair. Or heart.

Set an intention to heal any unexpressed anger that may be present in your life. Go to a quiet place with pen and paper. Take a few deep breaths. Ask your anger to speak to you. Write down the thoughts and feelings. When you are finished, forgive yourself for holding on to the anger for so long.