Jon Lovett Quotes

I get invited to do panels with other Brooklyn writers to discuss what it's like to be a writer in Brooklyn. I expect it's like writing in Manhattan, but there aren't as many tourists walking very slowly in front of you when you step out for coffee. It's like writing in Paris, but there are fewer people speaking French.

To practice - write each and every day if possible - then try to attend professional writer's conferences where you can learn your craft, get to know fellow writers, and meet editors and agents.

I have very specific advice for aspiring writers: go to New York. And if you can't go to New York, go to the place that represents New York to you, where the standards for writing are high, there are other people who share your dreams, and where you can talk, talk, talk about your interests.

Writers are so important.

I love writers. All of my best friends are writers.

Writers - all writers, even screenwriters - like to make their mark. I don't think many screenwriters can write. They pass as writers.

I found the writing arena to be much less competitive.

I am, really, a great writer; my only difficulty is in finding great readers.

It's not a problem to be surrounded by other writers if that's the craft that you're doing. I suppose if you get obsessed with the notion of being a writer more than the writing itself, that would be bad. But I live near really smart, thoughtful people who take writing very seriously, and I can meet them for breakfast and talk books.

Send it to someone who can publish it. And if they won't publish it, send it to someone else who can publish it! And keep sending it! Of course, if no one will publish it, at that point you might want to think about doing something other than writing.

My best advice for writers is: Have your adventures, make your mistakes, and choose your friends poorly - all these make for great stories.

More people have more access to more readers for less money than ever before in history. It means a lot of dross; but it means a lot of very talented people can find and nurture a readership in ways that were not possible twenty years ago. From a creative perspective, that is all that writing is about.

New fiction writers are a special breed in my estimation, and I never dreamed that so many people would be interested, but I remember being led by God.

I just love doing different things, which is what being a working author is like.

I wrote my first novel and my second novel in Chicago. It was the place where I became a writer. It's my favorite city.

As writers, we can't predict who might come along who might find our offerings valuable.

I'm a writer and this is what I love to do.

'The Atlantic' really gave me my writing career - even just the conviction to be a writer.

For sure, without question, the writing is better on TV pound for pound than movies because the businesses have changed so much. So all the great writers would rather work for TV, and they do.

I think more talented writers should get involved in the industry, yes, of course. But that doesn't presuppose that those writers have to be novelists or screenwriters.

Writers are nerds.

I'm clearly not a writer, but I'm always a fan of them.

I grew up around writers, and there was always a romance to them. They were charming. They would tell their stories of what they were working on, over the table.

I do have the feeling that other writers can't help you with writing. I've gone to writers' conferences and writers' sessions and writers' clinics, and the more I see of them, the more I'm sure it's the wrong direction. It isn't the place where you learn to write.

Just as readers often turn into writers, novel-writers often become novel-reviewers.