Matt Haig Quotes

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

I think some aspects of writing can be taught. Obviously, you can't teach vision or talent. But you can help with comfort.

It's very hard to tell somebody how to write when they're so good, and they're a brilliant writer and a really good guy.

Good writing of course requires talent, and no one can teach you to have talent.

I think writing is such a great talent, and if I was better, I would love to be a writer.

I find it both fascinating and disconcerting when I discover yet another person who believes that writing can't be taught. Frankly, I don't understand this point of view.

Humans are very complex; I definitely have a new respect for authors that are able to write books nonstop. It's an incredible talent.

I think you can be taught to write. You can't be taught to be a good writer. For that, you have to bring something to it, yourself, something that can't be given to you.

Writing can't be taught.

However great a man's natural talent may be, the act of writing cannot be learned all at once.

I never was a big believer that you can teach writing per se.

You can't teach somebody how to be a good writer.

I think you have to learn for yourself how to write. I'm slightly mystified by creative writing courses - God love them - because I can't understand how you can explain a process that I find so baffling.

No one can teach writing, but classes may stimulate the urge to write. If you are born a writer, you will inevitably and helplessly write. A born writer has self-knowledge. Read, read, read. And if you are a fiction writer, don't confine yourself to reading fiction. Every writer is first a wide reader.

Writers tell stories better, because they've had more practice, but everyone has a book in them. Yes, that old cliche.

A writer should get as much education as possible, but just going to school is not enough; if it were, all owners of doctorates would be inspired writers.

People say you can't teach writing, but I think that's nonsense.

I've written many nonfiction books, but that's a special gift.

I'm not a writer. I think I can write short stories and poetry, but film writing, brilliant film writing, is a talent - you can't just do it like that.

I spent several years acquiring the obsessive, day-to-day discipline that's needed if you want to write professionally, then several more, highly valuable years studying fiction writing at the University of Iowa.

Honestly, I feel pretty awed anytime I meet just about any writer. I get how hard it is to write and make a living from it, but there's also this almost magical force you need to tap into, and I'm amazed by anyone who can do it.

You know, writing is really difficult, and it takes a real patience and a skill. I don't know if I have that. I admire it in others, so much, and I envy it.

A lot of people ask me, 'Are you born a writer?' And I don't think it's necessarily true. I just think what you either have or you don't is this ability to see something that's complex and worth talking about.

If you have some natural talent and really want to write, you should read the books of someone who's very successful in your genre. You don't want to plagiarize, but you want to learn from that author.

I write because I like to make things and the only things I am good at making things with are words.