Alan Garner Quotes

Capote wrote every day. He said that's the only way, you have to sit down every day and do it.

My only ritual is to just sit down and write, write every day.

I don't believe in writer's block or waiting for inspiration. If you're a writer, you sit down and write.

I write when the baby is asleep or when I'm on the road I write a lot... There's always time to do it. It's like getting exercise.

For me, the optimum circumstances for writing a book are those of stultifying routine.

I make sure to write every day, even if it's a little bit.

It's hard to describe why one room and not another feels right for writing. Of course you have to train yourself to be able to write anywhere, but it's nice to feel that each book has a place that belongs to it, where it's home.

People imagine that there are rituals, like lighting candles or sacrificing chickens. They really just want to know what the magic formula is for writing. I inevitably disappoint them by saying you just put your butt in the chair, and you write 500 words a day, and then you get up and repeat it the next morning.

I used to get up and write every day, even if I wasn't working on a specific thing. Now, when I have a thing I'm in the middle of, I do that, but when I'm not, time can go by when I'm not writing at all.

Here I am, where I ought to be. A writer must have a place where he or she feels this, a place to love and be irritated with.

I write anywhere - when I have an idea, it's hard not to write. I used to be kind of precious about where I wrote. Everything had to be quiet and I couldn't be disturbed; it really filled my day.

Don't fall into the trap of having to have everything perfect to write or wait until the mood strikes you. If you want it as a job, treat it like a job, and just as you don't go to work only when you feel like it, you have to condition yourself to sit and write even when the ideas don't flow.

I used to write when I was in the mood or felt inspired. Anymore, I write whether I feel inspired or not. It's a discipline. So that's definitely different. It's part of maturing as a person and as a professional.

I spend most of every day writing. I like to write every day if I can. I don't start extremely early.

I am always urging my students to honor their writing practice, to set up a schedule.

I write all the time, whether I feel like it or not. I never get inspired unless I'm already writing.

The secret to being a writer is that you have to write. It's not enough to think about writing or to study literature or plan a future life as an author. You really have to lock yourself away, alone, and get to work.

You have to write every day, and you have to write whether you feel like it or not.

I just write from dawn to dusk.

My advice to young writers would be to write every day, even if it is only a few words. Get yourself on the habit of writing and it will become a lifelong one. And find a place to write where you are physically comfortable. You can't concentrate if you aren't. Ernest Hemingway could only write standing up, and Truman Capote could only write lying down!

I can only write new words at my desk, the one I've owned for 25 years. When we moved to our new house I designed my office around it. I've written everything I've ever written at this desk.

I don't need music to write, but sometimes I put music on. I don't need special clothes or even my own equipment.

I'm a workmanlike writer. I show up every day and treat it like a job. The old rule that writing is like any other job, the first rule is that you must show up. I'm at the keyboard from 9 to 4 every day.

I have to make myself write, sometimes. In the space between poems, you somehow forget how to do it, where to begin. It was good to be task - based for a while. I just came downstairs each day, picked the one I was going to do that day, and wrote.

I guess I write four or five hours a day, but I do it seven days a week. It's very disciplined, yes, but it's joy for me.