Dave Eggers Quotes

Ever since 'Strange Heaven,' I haven't really reread my old work. Not so much because I don't like the writer I was, or because I find flaws in the writing, but more because I get so burnt out on a novel once I've finished writing, revising, editing and copy editing it that I genuinely never want to look at it again after it's gone to press.

I try very hard to write the best book I possibly can, every time.

I write slowly, and I write many, many drafts. I probably have to work as hard as anyone, and maybe harder, to finish a poem. I often write a poem over years, because it takes me a long time to figure out what to say and how best to say it.

I coauthored my first nonfiction book by the time I was 25. I have been involved in nonfiction documentaries, newspapers, TV and internet since that time.

No one writes a great book every time out, or even a good book.

I'm a passionate believer in revision, and a lot of my writing gets done during revision process. It isn't just tweaking: I tend to break it apart and remake it every time I do a new draft.

I don't read my books, I write them. Once I've finished the many years it usually takes me to write them, I can't bear to read them, because I've spent too long with them already. I'm not advertising them very well, am I?

It takes me a long time writing books. It takes me about five years to write a book, and when I'm done, the last thing I want to do is to do it again.

I consider myself a writer, foremost - a nonfiction writer.

I really appreciate what it takes to create a book. I understand the loneliness that it involves and the excitement and the vulnerability: I especially identify with that.

I don't know how everyone writes a novel; that sounds exhausting.

Novel writing is far and away the most exhausting work I know.

Once I've got the first draft down on paper then I do five or six more drafts, the last two of which will be polishing drafts. The ones in between will flesh out the characters and maybe I'll check my research.

You throw the kitchen sink at your early books. You put everything in there. It's like when you meet a new girlfriend or boyfriend, you tell them all your best stories. By the time you have been married for 10 years, they are crying, 'Shut up!'

I try not to worry about rewriting books that worked well the first time. I'm too busy writing new books to worry about things that are already in print.

Usually by the time I finish a book tour I've just about had it with the book.

What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.

Every time I finish a book, I say to an imaginary god that I do not believe in, 'Please let me live to write another one.'

I tell beginning readers to read a lot and write a lot. If you want to write a book, find a subject that's really worth the time and effort you'll put in.

Every time I write a book, I've probably taken five years off my life.

Every time I do an album, I say, 'That's the last one.'

I have a hard time revising sentences, because I spend an inordinate amount of time on each sentence, and the sentence before it, and the sentence after it.

I did a complete rewrite of 650 pages in two weeks.

I try and get it right the first time. I may rewrite a sentence four or five times, but I rarely go back and kill a whole page and rewrite it.

Be kind and considerate with your criticism... It's just as hard to write a bad book as it is to write a good book.