Michael Chabon Quotes

I think you have to learn for yourself how to write. I'm slightly mystified by creative writing courses - God love them - because I can't understand how you can explain a process that I find so baffling.

Many novice writers, students in particular, think that writing is little more than copying down their self-talk, the palaver of the voices they hear in their heads. Of course, self-talk is thinking, and writing begins with thinking.

I find it both fascinating and disconcerting when I discover yet another person who believes that writing can't be taught. Frankly, I don't understand this point of view.

People say you can't teach writing, but I think that's nonsense.

When I began to be published, people got the idea that I should 'teach writing,' which I have no idea how to do and don't really believe in.

Writing can't be taught.

For example, many colleges in their writing programs teach some of my work.

I think most fiction writers naturally start by writing short stories, but some of us don't. When I first started writing, I just started writing a novel. It's a hard way to learn to write. I don't recommend it to my students, but it just happens that way for some of us.

I'm not a writer who teaches. I'm a teacher who writes.

I never was a big believer that you can teach writing per se.

Creative writing lessons can be very useful, just like music lessons can be useful. To say, as Hanif Kureishi did, that 99.9% of students are talentless is cruel and wrong. I believe that certain writers like to believe they arrived into the world with special, unteachable powers because it is good for the ego.

When you compose, it's like writing. You're like a writer. You just think all the time.

I don't think there are any secrets to writing in the - everybody has their own techniques. You must be widely read, that's one thing, because you have to resolve a tremendous amount of background information. Also, you should know what the competition is writing, just so you're not wasting your time doing the same thing. Unless you do it better, of course.

People always say, "Can writing be taught?" I always think, I can teach you how to write a better sentence, how to do dialogue, how to do character, but I can't teach you how to be a decent person, and I can't teach you how to have something to say.

I think a lot of what goes into writing can be taught - not mixing metaphors, etc.

I can't write. I would love to. I don't really have an interest in it, to be honest. I'll leave that to my fiance.

I really think that reading is just as important as writing when you're trying to be a writer because it's the only apprenticeship we have, it's the only way of learning how to write a story.

There is no left and right in writing. There is only good and bad writing.

No one can help you write. No one can teach you how to write.

I don't know anything but writing practice, and so what I really do is direct that energy as if it were flowing down a river.

Too often, I think, children are required to write before they have anything to say. Teach them to think and read and talk without self-repression, and they will write because they cannot help it.

Read! Read! Read! And then read some more. When you find something that thrills you, take it apart paragraph by paragraph, line by line, word by word, to see what made it so wonderful. Then use those tricks next time you write.

I don't think I write well - just better than anyone else.

I wish you good writing and good luck. Even if you've already done the good writing, you'll still need the good luck. It's a shark-filled lagoon out there. Cross your fingers and watch your back.

When you write - explode - fly apart - disintegrate! Then give time enough to think, cut, rework, and rewrite.