John Irving Quotes

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

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.

I can write anywhere. But I don't use a computer, and I could never write on a laptop. I hate the sound of computers; it's too dull, like it's not doing anything for you.

I'm not a big gadget guy. When I write, I'll do the whole thing by hand, and then I'll put it into the computer.

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

I love writing with pen and paper; I hate technology.

My writing routine is: get son off to school and sit down at 8 A.M. I read what I wrote the day before, and then write longhand, into a notebook. I prefer paper and pen because it feels closer to my brain.

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

I happen to write by hand. I don't even type.

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

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.

I love writing in longhand. Writing in longhand, I think, is a marvelous thing to do for a writer these days. If you have a notebook and a nice pen you can go off somewhere, you can write that's solar powered. You can drop it or get it wet and pretty much all of your work will continue to be there. If you suddenly decide to look up a word or check a reference you will not look up four hours later, blinking, finding yourself somehow in the middle of an Ebay auction you never had any plans to be part of.

How wonderful it is to be able to write someone a letter! To feel like conveying your thoughts to a person, to sit at your desk and pick up a pen, to put your thoughts into words like this is truly marvelous.

Ever since high school I've been writing in a spiral notebook, in pencil. Everything looks too polished on a computer when you start writing, and I can't really see it. I feel like the words are much more naked in pencil, on a notebook. I feel that my brain works differently, and words come out differently, if I have a pencil in my hand, rather than if I have a keyboard. I tend to add more in the margins. I tend to elongate the sentences as I'm writing and editing, and there is just something about the feeling of writing longhand that I really love.

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.

You know, my first three or four drafts, you can see, are on legal pads in long hand. And then I go to a typewriter, and I know everybody's switching to a computer. And I'm sort of laughed at.

The first drafts of my novels have all been written in longhand, and then I type them up on my old electric. I have resisted getting a computer because I distrust the whole PC thing. I don't think a great book has yet been written on computer.

If I had had a thing like an iPad when I was a kid, then I never would have gotten into the habit of writing things down by hand.

So much better to write pen on paper; you can do it anywhere, say, while stuck at the airport.

I think now, whenever I write, there is nothing that will really compare to pen and paper.

I'm known for being quite gobby, but also, I'm quite old fashioned in the sense that I like writing letters.

I think I'm from the 18th century, not even the 19th. I don't even use a typewriter. I prefer longhand, and that's how I submit my manuscripts to my publishers.

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