Sally Rooney Quotes

All the writing elements are the same. You need to tell a good story... You've got good characters... People think there's some dramatic difference between writing 'Little Bear' and the 'Hunger Games,' and as a writer, for me, there isn't.

When writing, I'm not thinking about war, even if I'm writing about it. I'm thinking about sentences, rhythm and story. So the focus, when I'm working, even if it's on a story that takes place at war, is not on bombs or bullets. It's on the story.

You have to have empathy, knowledge and compassion for your characters if you're a writer.

And dialogue, I'm good at it, and it's because it's the only thing you have to work with in TV writing.

I write and write and write, and then I edit it down to the parts that I think are amusing, or that help the storyline, or I'll write a notebook full of ideas of anecdotes or story points, and then I'll try and arrange them in a way that they would tell a semi-cohesive story.

A novelist should not be too intelligent either, although... he may be permitted to be an intellectual.

I love writing dialogue, and I think a lot of my writing is visual and very cinematic.

I'm interested in character and dialogue and exchange of ideas.

Most of the time, when I'm writing, I'm writing for myself. I'm thinking, 'What will my character say at this time? What will come out of her mouth?' I create individuals so real to me, I sometimes start talking to them. Then I let them loose on the page.

When I write a book, characters come to life for me somewhere at the back of my head. I strive to make them flesh and blood in an abstract way, in words.

Writing a screenplay is so spare, it kind of reminded me that I really should celebrate what I can do in a book, which is description: for example, places, people, locations.

I'm good at description and imparting flow to a story, but I don't necessarily understand the value of long scenes.

Whenever I write, I write very dialogue-heavy things because I love to force my characters to interact with one another.

I hate to write! But I love to talk, so I'm told that when people read my books, it like I'm there just talking with them.

Good writers are in the business of leaving signposts saying, Tour my world, see and feel it through my eyes; I am your guide.

I used to say I wasn't interested in writing about characters.

A novel is challenging, because you have more story than you need and you have to select and narrow.

Some of my most enjoyable moments as a writer have come while conjuring a meet cute.

I didn't know how to write a novel, so I sort of let it happen in waves. The only way I could write it was to think like scenes in a movie.

Every novel starts with a theme, and I am constantly looking for big ideas.

In my opinion, the most fruitful and natural play of the mind is conversation. I find it sweeter than any other action in life; and if I were forced to choose, I think I would rather lose my sight than my hearing and voice. The study of books is a drowsy and feeble exercise which does not warm you up.

Write the best story that you can and write it as straight as you can.

There is poetry in fiction. If you cannot see it and feel it when you write, you need to step back and examine what you are doing wrong. If you have not figured out how to write a simple declarative sentence and make it sing with that poetry, you are not yet ready to write an entire book.

Generally, I find that when you're writing and having fun with the writing, that energy and dynamism is going to come out in the text one way or another.

In order to be a living, breathing thing, a novel has to be failed in some kind of way. Or at least that's how I keep writing them.