Peter Ustinov Quotes

My childhood was surrounded by books and writing. From a very early age I was fascinated by storytelling, by the printed word, by language, by ideas. So I would seek them out.

I write. This is what I do. My job is to sit down with my vocabulary, select words, and decide what order they should be placed in an attempt to keep someone's attention and perhaps provide them with a laugh or two along the way.

I like writing books. I really love words. I love to read.

I don't like writing - it's so difficult to say what you mean. It's much easier to edit other people's writing and help them say what they mean.

I once had a story editor ask me not to use the word 'placenta.' I wanted to say: 'Now tell me again how you got here?' Oh, right, an angel of God placed you into the bill of the stork.

Five people read my work before its ready for publication, and I solicit opinions from all of them: my wife, my agent, my editor, and my parents.

I know a lot about words. I get paid to write stories, so I get to talk with people about the meaning behind words all day.

I spend a lot of my time just looking at words and grammar and writing things down that I don't know.

When I was 19, I wrote a novel, which was not very good, but I finished it.

I think about the sentence a long time, and then I write it. I don't revise it once it's set down.

My first book is called 'Carry the Three.' It's definitely in a drawer, and it's terrible. I never sent it to anybody. My wife read it, but nobody else.

I urge aspiring writers to write three full-length novels before contemplating publication.

All my editors since Malcolm Cowley have had instructions to leave my prose exactly as I wrote it. In the days of Malcolm Cowley, with 'On the Road' and 'The Dharma Bums', I had no power to stand by my style for better or for worse.

I always feel very afraid as I work on books. It's just so hard to write a decent book!

What provides you with subject matter is your own language - and that's all.

I am a novelist through and through.

The novelist's obsession, moment by moment, is with language: finding the right next word.

I did a lot of studying of great writers. I read that Hemingway rewrote 'The Sun Also Rises' 39 times.

I'm a very laboured writer. I hammer it out sentence by sentence, and it takes a long time. That's what the work is, right? To make the reader think it is not hard to do.

I do the same kind of rewriting that I do in the shorts that I do in long books - and that is a lot. The book really comes to life in the rewriting.

I try to write an essay every time I speak.

I always grew up with the idea that in order to be a successful writer, I should have a book published.

I love drafting like I love eating ice cream or having sex; I love revising like I love doing logic puzzles; I love line-editing like I love perfectly organizing a bookshelf; I hate reviewing copyedits and the second round of proofreading because, by then, I'm getting pretty tired of my own words. They all have their own challenges, though.

Every writer with half a brain knows to surround himself or herself with editors who are smarter, far more articulate, and infinitely better looking.

When I had worked on my first book, I had readily shown bits and pieces to everyone - for encouragement, to force myself to write.