Rumer Godden Quotes

I work at the sentences. Many of the things people find distinctive about my writing, I think of as natural.

I think in any writing you're paying attention to detail.

If you are to become a writer you'll have to stop fooling with words.

Does anybody learn writing, or do they just touch someone who lets them see the power of the deleted word?

Also, they don't understand - writing is language. The use of language. The language to create image, the language to create drama. It requires a skill of learning how to use language.

Read and write with a sensitive ear. The craft of writing is very important. Practice the craft.

Anybody can direct, but there are only eleven good writers.

Art can't be taught; passion can't be taught; discipline can't be taught; but craft can be taught. And writing is both an art and a craft.

The elegance and the quality - the talent is always in the literature. I start with the word and I base everything on that. It doesn't make any difference to me.

I've been writing fiction probably since I was about 6 years old, so it's something that is second nature to me now. I just sit down and start writing. I don't sit down and start writing and it comes out perfectly - it's a process.

Whatever is original in my writing comes from my musical apprenticeship. I look for rhythm in words. I imagine words as if they were musical chords. Often I'll write something, read it, and find it musically unsatisfactory. There is a musical imperative in my choice of words.

Writing is really hard, and it's really a skill.

Anthony Powell taught me to write; he has such brilliant control of the mechanics of the novel.

To find a new word that is accurate and different, you have to be alert for it.

No one writes a great book every time out, or even a good book.

The task of a writer consists of being able to make something out of an idea.

Well, in features, and in writing especially, it's often the style of the writer comes in.

I never think that any writer can teach someone how to write.

There isn't any distinction between a reader and a writer - reading is so much a part of it.

I think that if you have a knack for storytelling, and you work really hard at it, you'll have a chance to tap into something deep. But the fact remains that good sentences are hard won. Any writer worth a lick knows constructing a sentence, a paragraph, or a chapter is hard work.

I think striking the right tone for your story is, if you like, the alchemical work of writing.

I write the way I write.

So many stories, and to choose which ones to tell and how to tell them. The words, they will tap me on the shoulder and they will speak to me: 'Tell me! Tell me!' The stories choose me.

To achieve lasting literature, fictional or factual, a writer needs perceptive vision, absorptive capacity, and creative strength.

I wanted to write stories for myself. At first it was purely an aesthetic thing about craft. I just wanted to become good at the art of something. And writing was very private.