Sue Monk Kidd Quotes

I think that I had read so much fiction that the craft itself sort of sank into me. I didn't read any 'how to' books or attend any popular-fiction-writing classes or have a critique group. For many years into my writing, I didn't even know another author. For me, a lot of reading was the best teacher.

I started writing when I was about 20, 21 maybe.

I would say, number one, don't worry about getting published. Just write. Number two, just write. Three is make sure you read.

When I started to write, I realised that you need a bit of both: the overall context as well as the individual's experience.

To be a writer, you need to like spending a lot of time by yourself in the company of imaginary people.

How do we live the writer's life? There's only one simple answer: 'we write.'

I think writing is such a great talent, and if I was better, I would love to be a writer.

My aunt got me interested in journalism - she found an old typewriter, had it worked over, put it on the dining room table, gave me a stack of paper and said, 'Play like you're a writer.'

I'm very interested in writing - it just takes so much discipline, whether it's short stories or novels.

If you want to be a writer, just write. There's no magic to it.

It's a lot to expect of yourself, to write a novel in a year. Anyway, you don't write a novel, you write a scene, and then another scene.

Novel writing is solitary work.

I always counsel aspiring novelists that passion is the most important quality for a writer to possess - technique can be taught, but that relentless desire to write has to come from within.

I am very fortunate in that I have spent pretty much my whole life being a writer, and before I was a writer, I was a storyteller.

I started writing when I was about thirteen.

You become a better writer by writing. You become a better travel writer by writing about travel.

I always wrote. I wrote every day. I don't think I could have written 'Just Kids' had I not spent all of the '80s developing my craft as a writer.

I am dismayed to realize that much of the advice I used to parcel out to aspiring writers has passed its sell-by date.

If you want to be a writer, write a little bit every day. Pay attention to the world around you. Stories are hiding, waiting everywhere. You just have to open your eyes and your heart.

If you have some natural talent and really want to write, you should read the books of someone who's very successful in your genre. You don't want to plagiarize, but you want to learn from that author.

I worked with several writers at the University of Michigan: Nicholas Delbanco, Peter Ho Davies, Eileen Pollack, Laura Kasischke, and Thomas Lynch, who told me the same thing over and over again: Persist. Read, write, and improve: tell your stories.

It's not possible to advise a young writer because every young writer is so different. You might say, 'Read,' but a writer can read too much and be paralyzed. Or, 'Don't read, don't think, just write,' and the result could be a mountain of drivel.

If you want to take writing on, you should pay writing the respect it deserves, which is to say, reading it.

I've been writing in some way, shape, or form for as long as I can remember.

I'm way into writing, as much as I can.