Paul Auster Quotes

I don't write with a machine. I write with a pen and a paper, which is what is most comfortable for me.

When I write, I use an Underwood #5 made in 1920. Someone gave me an electric typewriter, but there's no use pretending you can use machinery that thinks faster than you do. An electric typewriter is ready to go before I have anything to say.

I write with a pen and paper. Never on a laptop.

I'm very primitive; I write with a pen.

I still write with pen and paper and have someone type it on a computer. But rewriting I do by hand.

I don't use a typewriter, I write longhand, with a pencil. Essentially I'm a horizontal writer. I think better when I'm lying down.

I work with pen and paper. That's my favorite way to write. I love the way the ink sinks into the wood, soaks into the wood pulp. There's something about that process that's so organic.

I write description in longhand because that's hardest for me and you're closer to the paper when you work by hand, but I use the typewriter for dialogue because people speak like a typewriter works.

I'm not typing. I write only by longhand. I've always written first drafts by hand and then once I was into a second or third draft I wrote insert pages on a typewriter. But I got rid of all my typewriters about three or four novels ago and now I do everything by hand. I write by hand because it makes me go slow and going slow is what I like.

I like the process of pencil and paper as opposed to a machine. I think the writing is better when it's done in handwriting.

I don't use a computer in writing at all. I'm sort of old-fashioned about it.

My first five novels were written longhand. So were hosts of short stories.

Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers.

My general working style is to write everything first with pencil and paper, sitting beside a big wastebasket. Then I use Emacs to enter the text into my machine.

I don't read anything electronically. I don't write electronically, either - except e-mails to my family and friends. I write in longhand. I have always written first drafts by hand, but I used to write subsequent drafts and insert pages on a typewriter.

I have always preferred paper and ink to a computer screen and I still write most of my lyrics by hand.

I never work on a computer. I can't write on a computer. It's just not possible for me to do that.

A pen on paper is the ideal way for me. I am not really very comfortable with machines; I never learned to type very well.

When I'm writing flawed characters, I just think about my own flaws.

When I write, I never think of segments as chapters; I think of them as scenes. I always visualize them in my mind. Then I try to get the scene down on paper as closely as I can. That's the one thing that readers don't see - what you have in your mind. The reader can only see what you get on the page.

I haven't had writer's block. I think it's because my process involves writing very badly.

You can only write by putting words on a paper one at a time.

What I think is important about essayists, about the essay as opposed to a lot of personal writing is that the material has to be presented in a processed way. I'm just not interested in writing, "Hey, this is what happened to me today." You get to a place that has very little to do with your personal experience and talks about some larger idea or something in the culture. I don't think you can get to that unless you have had a lot of time to gestate and maybe if I was taking a lot of notes while stuff was going on, I wouldn't be able to get to that place as easily.

I think it almost all has to do with coming at writing from an acting perspective, because I didn't, like, study writing. I studied acting.

There are times where I would keep three typewriters on a table, and I'd have three complete thoughts going. With computers, you make folders, files - I don't know about those things. I have sheaves of paper polluted with words and paragraphs. I found it a good tool for me. And it keeps your hands strong for guitar playing.