E. O. Wilson Quotes

It's really hard to be a story writer - no matter how much acclaim you get - and not write a novel.

I write short stories. I write every day.

It's funny, because I don't think of myself as a novelist. I think of myself as a writer.

I'm not nearly smart enough or imaginative enough to tackle the novel form. Never happen.

I've moved on to Plan B now, writing novels.

When I am writing fiction, I believe I am much better organized, more methodical - one has to be when writing a novel. Writing poetry is a state of free float.

I don't like to talk about work in progress, but the novel I'm working on now is definitely not horror.

The novel, for me, was an accident. I really don't consider myself a novelist.

I have no favourite genre or style but treat each novel with the same care, imagination and craftsmanship. It's as difficult to write a crime or a children's novel with a touch of style and grace as it is a literary novel.

I started writing stories in my spare time.

I am a better novelist than a poet, playwright, or essayist.

My temperament is not geared to that of a novelist.

I tend to be more of a novel writer. In fact, some of my novels started out as short stories, and I just got carried away! I think some of my best writing is in the short story form, but novels come more naturally to me.

When I was in college, I used to write little ditties and short stories and poetry for my friends. Writing a book is another thing. It is so much different from my traditional day of dirty fingernails and greasy hair and hot pans.

I am a very linear thinker, so I write beginning to end. I write hundreds of pages per book that never make it into print.

I come from a prose background. I come from short story background, and that led me into novels.

I think I'm a born storyteller. Inspiration is all around me. I can read a newspaper article and come up with an idea for a book.

Oh you know, I've been writing a novel.

Why do I like to write short stories? Well, I certainly didn't intend to. I was going to write a novel. And still! I still come up with ideas for novels. And I even start novels. But something happens to them. They break up. I look at what I really want to do with the material, and it never turns out to be a novel.

I want to be a better writer. I want to learn and grow, to know how to tell stories in a different and more challenging way. I've learned it doesn't get easier each time. It actually gets harder.

I can't imagine writing a novel without some sound. When you're facing a few hundred blank pages, silence can be cold.

You have to write your own story, your own graph and rhythm.

I didn't think I could pull off a novel.

If writing a novel is a year's exile to a foreign country, writing a short story is a weekend spent somewhere exotic. They're much more like vacations, more exciting and different, and you're off.

If writing novels is like planting a forest, then writing short stories is more like planting a garden.