David Morrell Quotes

Write your goddamned book now. The world awaits.

Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout with some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.

Each book starts from ashes really. I don't feel that I have this to say or that to say or this story to tell or that story to tell, but I want to be occupied with the writing process while I'm living.

A book comes and says, 'Write me.

You have to write the book that wants to be written.

Every author ought to write every book as if he were going to be beheaded the day he finished it.

You have to surrender to your mediocrity, and just write. Because it's hard, really hard, to write even a crappy book. But it's better to write a book that kind of sucks rather than no book at all, as you wait around to magically become Faulkner. No one is going to write your book for you and you can't write anybody's book but your own.

The only way to write a book, I’m fond of telling people, is to actually write a book. That’s how you write a book.

My belief of book writing is much the same as my belief as to shoemaking. The man who will work the hardest at it, and will work with the most honest purpose, will work the best.

It is no fun at all to have been writing a book for seven or so years, especially when you've never published anything before.

Books aren't made in the way that babies are: they are made like pyramids. There's some long-pondered plan, and then great blocks of stone are placed one on top of the other, and it's back-breaking, sweaty, time consuming work. And all to no purpose! It just stands there in the desert! But it towers over it prodigiously. Jackals piss at the base of it, and bourgeois clamber to the top of it, etc. Continue this comparison.

I couldn't have opened a store without putting books with the clothes. I am still writing as I have always done, and have published my ninth book "L'envers à l'endroit" last year. I am currently working on a dictionary of my favourite words.

No book or poem is ever finished, merely abandoned.

I write books that way - I put a first line down and say, "Where does this go?"

How long does it take to write a good book? All of the years that you've lived.

It's not my brain that's writing the book, it's these hands of mine.

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

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

The process of book writing for me is entirely one of trial and error.

I think the book you always like best is the one you're about to write.

Go where the pleasure is in your writing. Go where the pain is. Write the book you would like to read. Write the book you have been trying to find but have not found. But write. And remember, there are no rules for our profession. Ignore rules. Ignore what I say here if it doesn't help you. Do it your own way. Every writer knows fear and discouragement. Just write.The world is crying for new writing. It is crying for fresh and original voices and new characters and new stories. If you won't write the classics of tomorrow, well, we will not have any.

When you write a book, you spend day after day scanning and identifying the trees. When you’re done, you have to step back and look at the forest.

There's no such thing as a folk writer. There's no such thing as somebody who's never read a book before suddenly sitting down one day and writing one. You have to learn how to captivate a reader. Right? And I don't mean you have to go to school for it. But if you're - if you pay attention, you can learn it by reading books. And so I feel like I learned a lot by reading books.

Writing a book isn’t an easy process nor is it always enjoyable, but it is one of life’s most satisfying achievements.

I think you could say every pastor is writing this book, Max on Life; for many it just never gets published. All I did was collect a few of the questions I've been asked through the years, write up a brief response and put them in this publication.