Sarah Hall Quotes

I really do believe some people are naturally novelists and some people are short story writers. For me, when I was in middle school or high school, I started with novels.

Well, to be honest I think I'm a better short story writer than a novelist. Novels I find very hard, hours and hours, weeks and weeks, of conscious thought - whereas short stories slip out painlessly in a few days.

There isn't any distinction between a reader and a writer - reading is so much a part of it.

Writers cannot simply have a go, imagining it's easier to produce a story than a novel because fewer words are required. Have a go by all means; be intrepid, but be equipped.

I'm a pretty decent writer. It comes easy to me. I don't agonize over sentences. I write like I talk. I try to make them good books.

I had always loved to write and my mom was my editor for my school papers.

One of the more interesting things I've learnt since becoming a writer is that if you like the book, you'll generally like the person. It doesn't always work in reverse - there are huge numbers of lovely people out there writing not very good books.

Real novelists, those we admire, those we consider timeless in their language and character and scene, those who receive accolades for inventive language and form, have writing lives we imagine in specific ways.

Out of the thousand writers huffing and puffing through movieland, there are scarcely fifty men and women of wit and talent... Yet, in a curious way, there is not much difference between the product of a good writer and a bad one. They both have to toe the same mark.

Anybody could write a bad script, and I'm one of them, you know?

Mainly I love working on good writing.

Even the best novelists are rarely congratulated on the quality of their observations about contemporary life.

Writing is just very difficult. I'm an adequate performer. And I think I have a special talent as an editor. Editing is what I do best.

Many fiction writers write for the critics or for themselves; they forget the common reader. I never do. I don't think journalism clashes with my fiction; on the contrary, it helps enormously.

And I love writing; I've been writing ever since I was seven.

It is my desire to be a great writer. I know that I still have a mountain to climb to achieve that.

Ultimately, the first, best step in getting your work noticed is to write good work. If people don't engage in your writing, no amount of serialization or free downloads is going to matter. You have to write something worth reading, and often it takes time to get at that level.

Headline writing is an art form.

When I started writing fiction, I knew how good it was immediately.

I've always enjoyed writing, I graduated with a degree in English; I've done bits of journalism.

Writing is writing. It's an abiding, wonderful talent, craft, gift that stays with you your whole life. And you can go in different forms, and you can try them. Look at me: I'm writing novels because I found something I love because I tried it.

Writers tend to write stories as a kind of holiday between novels, or as preliminary steps towards a novel. Stories just don't often make up a writer's main body of work, and that's not because they don't see the market for it.

You have to go where the good writing is.

There's nothing more powerful to a showrunner than a truly invested writer.

Although I write screenplays, I don't think I'm a very good writer.