Jennifer McMahon Quotes

I don't know any writer for whom it comes easily. Maybe John Updike - a story would just seem to come to him whole, you know, out of a personal experience. But the rest of us, I think, are not so lucky, and I had to work hard, yeah.

I loved English, and I did very well in it. A lot of teachers encouraged me to write, and because of that, it later made me think it was possible to be a writer.

I think writing is such a great talent, and if I was better, I would love to be a writer.

I've written many nonfiction books, but that's a special gift.

If you give me a typewriter and I'm having a good day, I can write a scene that will astonish its readers. That will perhaps make them laugh, perhaps make them cry - that will have some emotional clout to it. It doesn't cost much to do that.

I think people who create and write, it actually does flow-just flows from into their head, into their hand, and they write it down. It's simple.

A lot of people ask me, 'Are you born a writer?' And I don't think it's necessarily true. I just think what you either have or you don't is this ability to see something that's complex and worth talking about.

Good writing of course requires talent, and no one can teach you to have talent.

The nice thing about being a writer is that you can make magic happen without learning tricks.

Writers tell stories better, because they've had more practice, but everyone has a book in them. Yes, that old cliche.

I've been writing since I was really young, so I considered myself a writer for a really long time.

I'm a writer, and what I do is write. I wasn't able to do anything else.

Humans are very complex; I definitely have a new respect for authors that are able to write books nonstop. It's an incredible talent.

I think you can be taught to write. You can't be taught to be a good writer. For that, you have to bring something to it, yourself, something that can't be given to you.

There's a mystery to writing, and you don't really know where most of it comes from.

I'm not a writer. I think I can write short stories and poetry, but film writing, brilliant film writing, is a talent - you can't just do it like that.

I've figured out in the course of my life that the one thing I'm good at doing is writing books, and it would be crazy to trade that in for something else.

I never think that any writer can teach someone how to write.

Some editors are failed writers, but so are most writers.

New fiction writers are a special breed in my estimation, and I never dreamed that so many people would be interested, but I remember being led by God.

I'm not a writer where I feel particularly blessed by great inspiration every day. I don't. I have to work really hard at it to try and say the things I'm concerned with.

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

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

A novel I read when I was about 17 or 18 - 'The World According to Garp,' by John Irving - really made me want to become a writer. The character of Garp is a novelist, and at the time, the whole lifestyle of being a writer was hugely appealing to me.

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.