W. P. Kinsella Quotes

I don't know what makes a writer's voice. It's dozens of things. There are people who write who don't have it. They're tone-deaf, even though they're very fluent. It's an ability, like anything else, being a doctor or a veterinarian, or a musician.

There are seldom more than a couple of students in any workshop who seem natural writers.

Writers - all writers, even screenwriters - like to make their mark. I don't think many screenwriters can write. They pass as writers.

A person who can write a long letter with ease, cannot write ill.

I write fast, I write beautifully, I write convincingly.

English of course is your major tool, but it is not nearly so important as other aspects of writing for example you have to have some natural ability you can't buy it no one puts it there you're born with it.

I've always been able to write. I've always been able to put a good essay in or say whatever I wanted to say through the pen. That was a gift of mine. I feel like it was what I was meant to do.

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

I just believe that young people need to be able to learn how to write in their own voice. Just like a musician, you pride yourself on having your own distinct sound.

All good writing is swimming under water and holding your breath.

No, you're either born a writer, a storyteller, or you're not.

My seventeen years of teaching inform my sense of audience in every line I write.

How hard it is to make your thoughts look anything but imbecile fools when you paint them with ink on paper.

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.

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 have always thought that writers come with any variety of attributes. Some are capable and some aren't.

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

Early on, it's good to develop the ability to write. Learning to write is a useful exercise, even if what you're writing about is not that relevant.

However great a man's natural talent may be, the act of writing cannot be learned all at once.

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

We like to think about how smart we are. But I think talent as a writer is hard-wired in, it's all there, at least the basic elements of it. You can't change it any more than you can choose whether to be right handed or left handed.

Just because someone has stylistic limitations doesn't necessarily make them a worse writer.

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.

I'm a better writer than I am a singer, and I express myself easily through writing.

Sean's a great, great writer.