David Bergen Quotes

I knew I was a writer; I wanted to be a writer, but I didn't know what to write.

I thought my book was done, then we went to Hawaii and the whole last chapter happened.

I had no idea what to expect when I first started writing.

Everything can be grist for the muse. Sometimes, writers draw on personal experiences. 'Ghoul' was just that.

Most everything that happens to me in any significant sense finds its way into my fiction.

I feel like writing a book there's always a version in your head that's an amazing version, but then you write the version that you can write.

I wanted to be a poet when I was 20; I had no interest in fiction or biography and precious little interest in history, but those three elements in my life have become the most important.

I guess what led to me writing 'Holes' was having moved to Texas in 1991, and it was sort of my reaction to Texas.

I always say that, for me, writing a book is like a wacky Greyhound bus trip - I know where I'm starting and where I'll end up, but I have no idea what will happen along the way.

Doing interesting things and then writing about them is the best way to become a good writer.

I always have a book that I use that somehow inspires my novels.

The only thing I know anything about are my own fantasies and anxieties. I don't trust my eyes. I consider myself to be a short-story writer.

Writing 'when you find me,' it really exposed me to a way of putting together a story I hadn't thought of.

I think there is often a 'what if' proposition that gets me thinking about all my novels.

At the moment, I'm toying with a new idea for a book, but fully engaged with writing screenplays, so the book idea - which needs empty space in my head - is barely formed yet.

I guess you could say I've been writing all my life.

When I write, I try to think back to what I was afraid of or what was scary to me, and try to put those feelings into books.

My best advice for writers is: Have your adventures, make your mistakes, and choose your friends poorly - all these make for great stories.

You never know how - or when - the idea for a book will appear.

I started writing morning pages just to keep my hand in, you know, just because I was a writer and I didn't know what else to do but write. And then one day as I was writing, a character came sort of strolling in and I realized, Oh my God, I don't have to be just a screenwriter. I can write novels.

When I sit at that typewriter, I have to be frightened of what I'm trying to do. I'm frightened by my own belief that I can actually get a story down on paper.

If you write, one of the questions you're always trying to answer is, Where do you get your ideas? And, if you write, you know how pointless a question this is and how difficult it is to answer.

The whole excitement for writing anything is quite intense. And for a day or two, you think you've done everything extremely well. The problems start on the third day, and continues for the rest of your life.

I started to write in 2001. I wrote the books for the fun of it. It was an old idea I had had since the nineties.

If you're a writer, you know there are ways in which we don't know what we're doing at all. We're working out mysteries in a sort of poetic realm, and hoping that if a story is honest, if you're dragging the deep truth out of yourself, then something good and profound might come out of it.