Junot Diaz Quotes

I set out to write a screenplay but, since my early 20s, had dreamed of writing a novel.

Don't romanticise your 'vocation.' You can either write good sentences or you can't. There is no 'writer's lifestyle.' All that matters is what you leave on the page.

I don't think I knew I would be a writer. I wanted to become a writer, and I tried to write.

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.

As a writer, I've always been somebody who's been productive and hustled hard.

I've always been ambidextrous, writing short stories and novels, and I pretty much have been writing a novel and a handful of short stories every year since '91.

The real writer is one who really writes. Talent is an invention like phlogiston after the fact of fire. Work is its own cure. You have to like it better than being loved.

I write a good amount. I've been gathering up a backlog of stuff and maybe I'll do something with it someday, but I don't want to talk about it just yet because that would jinx it.

At the outset, my notion of being a writer was that you would have moments of inspiration and moments of frustration, when you'd crumple up your pages and toss them away. On one side, the dustbin would fill up, and on the other side, pages would rise into a novel.

As a child, I amused myself by making up stories. I'd lie in bed when I was supposed to be sleeping and imagine other lands where people were doing fascinating things. By fifth grade, I knew I wanted to be a writer, but it took several more decades to really find my way as an author.

Because I'm such a creative person, and I've always got my nose in a book, I suppose it was only a matter of time before non-fiction turned into fiction again. But I never consciously set out to become a writer and I never thought I'd be doing the things I'm doing today.

Going off the road just leaves me more time to be a writer.

As long as I can remember, I wanted to be a writer.

You don't say, I'm going to be a writer when I grow up - at least I didn't.

At Marvel, I was lucky enough to work with really talented people, but I always had this nagging thought: 'One day I'll write my own stories.'

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.

I wrote my first book at 20, but my whole focus from about the age of 12 was to be a writer.

I started out writing stories because that's all I wanted to read, but now I don't know if I'll ever write one again.

I wanted to be a writer and I ended up being a writer.

When I was a kid and wanted to grow up to be a writer, I assumed I would be writing about animals and children because that's what I cared about and read about. But I never did.

Honestly, I never dreamed of being a writer; it felt too unrealistic to even dream about.

Can you write 200 words a day? 100? 50? In six months, 50 words a day is 9,000 words. That's 2-3 short stories. If you did 200 words every day, in three months that's 36,000 words. That's half a short novel.

I write - and then I write some more.

I don't write a novel every two years.

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