George Gissing Quotes

As a writer, I don't think it's my responsibility to make a point. I just write and hope there's someone who'll like it.

I’m an author. We don’t want to lead. We don’t need to follow. We stay home and make stuff up and write it down and send it out into the world, and get inside people’s heads. Perhaps we change the world and perhaps we don’t. We never know. We just make stuff up.

I thought, if I write a book that is not a retelling of Pride and Prejudice, it's not going to mean that I will not get any criticism. I might as well write the book that I want to write.

Most writers write books that they wouldn't read. I ought to know; I've done it myself.

Books are an attempt to control something that's uncontrollable.

Writing is one of the most assertive things a person can do.

As an artist your first loyalty is to your art. Unless this is the case, you're going to be a second-rate artist. I don't mean there's never any overlap. You learn things in one area and bring them into another area. But giving a speech against racism is not the same as writing a novel. The object is very clear in the fight against racism; you have reasons why you're opposed to it. But when you're writing a novel, you don't want the reader to come out of it voting yes or no to some question. Life is more complicated than that. Reality simply consists of different points of view.

Pay no attention to the criticism of men who have never themselves written a notable work.

You can't be a writer if you don't write, it's just that simple.

I'm really open to just about anything but I think the real dream is to be able to write my own thing.

The good thing about writing books is that you can dream while you are awake. If it’s a real dream, you cannot control it. When writing the book, you are awake; you can choose the time, the length, everything. I write for four or five hours in the morning and when the time comes, I stop. I can continue the next day. If it’s a real dream, you can’t do that.

Writing is not an amusing occupation. It is a combination of ditch-digging, mountain-climbing, treadmill and childbirth.

Nobody asks you to do this. The world out there is not panting after another novelist. We choose it

One hates an author that's all author.

I mean it's the writing, not the being read, that excites me.

It's hard for me to believe that people who read very little (or not at all in some cases) should presume to write and expect people to like what they have written.

I know well enough that very few people who are supposedly interested in writing are interested in writing well. They are interested in publishing something, and if possible in making a "killing." They are interested in being a writer not in writing. . . If this is what you are interested in, I am not going to be much use to you.

If what you want to do is write, then it's madness not to do it.

A character is never the author who created him. It is quite likely, however, that an author may be all his characters simultaneously.

Writing is one of the few professions left where you take all the responsibility for what you do. It's really dangerous and ultimately destroys you as a writer if you start thinking about responses to your work or what your audience needs.

If you would be a reader, read; if a writer, write.

It was an interesting thing to do. Why did I write any of my books, after all? For the sake of the pleasure, for the sake of the difficulty. I have no social purpose, no moral message; I've no general ideas to exploit, I just like composing riddles with elegant solutions.

Following takes why. Transactions take what. It has to be real. It has to be the same for writing a book.

Let the writer take up surgery or bricklaying if he is interested in technique. There is no mechanical way to get the writing done, no shortcut. The young writer would be a fool to follow a theory. Teach yourself by your own mistakes; people learn only by error. The good artist believes that nobody is good enough to give him advice. He has supreme vanity. No matter how much he admires the old writer, he wants to beat him.

Writing is not chewing your nails and picking your teeth, but a matter of public interest.