Nathaniel Philbrick Quotes

I have met so many people who say they've got a book in them, but they've never written a word. To be a writer - this may seem trite, I realize - you have to actually write.

The main thing about writing is... writing. Sitting your butt down in the chair and doing the work.

People always ask, 'How do you write so many books?' And I say, I work a lot. I work six or seven days a week.

I think enthusiasm is the answer to passionate writing.

Storytelling is what lights my fire.

The great fun in my life has been getting up every morning and rushing to the typewriter because some new idea has hit me.

Literature has become my life.

I like writing. I get cranky when I can't. Yes, I write books back to back, and I work very hard on them.

You can write any time people will leave you alone and not interrupt you. Or, rather, you can if you will be ruthless enough about it. But the best writing is certainly when you are in love.

I love writing. I've pursued it with a passion.

I think it takes a lot of desire because I think a lot of people who've never written books don't know quite how hard it is to stick with, to put in the amount of time and just make the commitment to just sit there every day and do it while everybody else is out having fun.

I used to think that when I finished a book, I was finished with it. But it's like a wonderful Hydra. Every time a head disappears, more heads appear, so I will be writing for the rest of my life. The more books I write, the more books I find that I still have to write about. I use it like an inspiration, and that's wonderful.

I am writing a book and that takes third place of importance.

I'm always writing or playing because that is my life.

Being a writer involves writing. You've got to commit to sitting down and writing instead of Xbox or Netflix.

I've lost track of the number of people who want to be writers but never actually write anything. Talking about writing, dreaming about writing, can be very fun, but it won't get a book written. You've got to write.

It's hard to conceive of someone who could work for at least a few hours each day for months and years on the same story without it being close enough to their life experience to fuel their commitment.

If you love something - and there are things that I love - you do want more and more and more of it, but that's not the way to produce good work. So as an author, I need to write what I need to write.

I'm always writing. A friend of mine once said, 'You avoid re-writing by writing.' Which is kind of a good point, because re-writing seems to be mostly about craft, and writing is just, like, getting out your passion on a piece of paper.

A book comes and says, 'Write me.' My job is to try to serve it to the best of my ability, which is never good enough, but all I can do is listen to it, do what it tells me and collaborate.

I've always been a writer. I hope to continue to write books until I can't anymore.

The writing comes first for me. Not Facebook, not Twitter, not the Internet or signings or merchandise, or 'the career.' Everything begins and ends with the writing for me, and I build my entire life around sitting my butt down 365 days a year.

It is difficult to be creative and enthusiastic about anything for which we do not feel affection.

So I thought I should write five pages a day. And that's what I did. Eventually I had a book.

When I write books, I've learned not to have any expectations that I'm going to change the world.