Philip Roth Quotes

Shut up and write anyway. Don't use anything as an excuse.

I'm always trying. Between every book, I think, 'Well now, it's time to get down to the serious stuff.'

I am not at all in a humour for writing; I must write on till I am.

Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.

Write even when the world is chaotic. You don’t need a cigarette, silence, music, a comfortable chair, or inner peace to write. You just need ten minutes and a writing implement.

The best restriction I learned was getting into the habit of doing something, even if I didn't feel like it, instead of running away from it. Sometimes good work needs to be earned, and when you can overcome yourself, the muse notices and celebrates.

I'm guessing the stress of having to write for a deadline can be inspiring. Sometimes, pressure is good.

The writer has two kinds of faith: actual writing and sitting openly. Have faith in your personal effort or sweat. And faith in God, or whatever you want to call it. Then the voices will come. Faith is the big deal.

I'm a 24-hour tweet machine, I'm a 24-hour blogger. When there's no pressure on me, I can talk and write and lecture with the best of them. But put a deadline on me and I start getting writer's block.

If you really want to write, then shut yourself in a room, close the door, and WRITE. If you don't want to write, do something else. It's as simple as that.

I don't really love writing. I don't love the feeling of starting a new file. But I love the feeling of overcoming and accomplishing.

Ideas aren't magical; the only tricky part is holding on to one long enough to get it written down.

I don't believe in writer's block. Think about it - when you were blocked in college and had to write a paper, didn't it always manage to fix itself the night before the paper was due? Writer's block is having too much time on your hands.

Pressure makes me produce. Kills most guys. Mortifies 'em.

I'm not really worried about writer's block.

I'm relentless when it comes to writing and recording.

Never stop writing because you have run out of ideas. Fill the lacunae of inspiration by tidily copying out what is already written.

Sometimes I find it too hot to run, and sometimes too cold. Or too cloudy. But I still go running. I know that if I didn't go running, I wouldn't go the next day either. It's not in human nature to take unnecessary burdens upon oneself, so one's body soon becomes disaccustomed. It mustn't do that. It's the same with writing. I write every day so that my mind doesn't become disaccustomed.

Constantly scanning the world for the negative comes with a great cost. It undercuts our creativity, raises our stress levels, and lowers our motivation and ability to accomplish goals.

All great artists and thinkers are great workers.

I think I write or publish as much as I do because I can bear being without a book to work on. But routinely when I finish a book, I think, "What will I do? Where will I get an idea?" And a kind of low-level panic sets in. And then eventually something happens. I don't know. If I knew how it happened I would repeat the process, but I don't know - something just occurs to me.

Take out another notebook, pick up another pen, and just write, just write, just write. In the middle of the world, make one positive step. In the center of chaos, make one definitive act. Just write. Say yes, stay alive, be awake. Just write. Just write. Just write.

I work every day - or at least I force myself into office or room. I may get nothing done, but you don't earn bonuses without putting in time. Nothing may come for three months, but you don't earn the fourth without it.

[As a writer] you have to have the three D's: drive, discipline and desire. If you're missing any one of those three, you can have all the talent in the world, but it's going to be really hard to get anything done.

Torture yourself about your failures. And then get back to work.