Jacques Barzun Quotes

Every poem probably has sixty drafts behind it.

A writer's job is to destroy and then to build the thing back up again by a chosen means.

I rewrote the ending of 'Farewell to Arms' 39 times before I was satisfied.

I write dozens and dozens of pages more than I need, and then edit them down to size. It's more like sculpture than construction.

I can't understand how anyone can write without rewriting everything over and over again.

I might write four lines or I might write twenty. I subtract and I add until I really hit something I want to do. You don't always whittle down, sometimes you whittle up.

Writing is 1 percent inspiration, and 99 percent elimination.

Constant work, constant writing and constant revision. The real writer learns nothing from life. He is more like an oyster or a sponge. What he takes in he takes in normally the way any person takes in experience. But it is what is done with it in his mind, if he is a real writer, that makes his art.

During the day, if I don't have any other commitments, I'm usually at my desk writing, revising, or researching anywhere from four to six hours.

You become a great writer by writing.

It took me years of attempts and failed drafts before I finally wrote the elegies I needed to write.

I must write the book out in my head now, before I sit down.

I write a chapter, then edit it and edit it and edit it and edit it. I don't think we mine creativity from within. It's bestowed from on high, from God.

When it comes to lyrics, I just write down a lot of things, and only a very tiny fraction of it, I think, is any good.

Writing is rewriting; rewriting is writing - from the first crossed-out word in the first sentence to the last word inserted above a caret, that most helpful handwritten stroke.

The process of composition, messing around with paragraphs and trying to make really good prose, is hardwired into my personality.

I start with an idea that is no more than a paragraph long, and expand it slowly into an outline. But I'm always surprised by the directions things take when I actually start writing.

I can't believe there is a poet who hasn't eagerly put down a word one day, only to erase it the next day deciding it was sheer lunacy. It's part of the process of selection.

Every writer has to figure out what works best - and often has to select and discard different tools before they find the one that fits.

I do so much revising as I go along; I wonder how I could write books if I hadn't grown up in the computer age. I think I'd be a very different writer. I find myself cutting and pasting, changing things around and deleting whole paragraphs constantly.

The act of writing surprises me all the time. A miraculous thing happens when you have an idea and you want to convert it into words... and then you start to create a work of art, and that's another miracle, and it remains mysterious to the writer, or to this writer anyway.

Writing is like bricklaying; you put down one word after another. Sometimes the wall goes up straight and true and sometimes it doesn't and you have to push it down and start again, but you don't stop; it's your trade.

A ratio of failures is built into the process of writing. The wastebasket has evolved for a reason.

I think too many people edit themselves way too soon. There's plenty of time to edit, and it is a crucial part of it all, too.

I put the words down and push them a bit.