John Lanchester Quotes

I have heard of novels started in the middle, at the end, written in patches to be joined together later, but I have never felt the slightest desire to do this.

When I sit down to write, I don't think about writing about an idea or a given message. I just try to write a story which is hard enough.

As far as what I do, my value as a writer is certainly not to try to recapitulate a 19th century form. Certain styles of narrative don't conform to my style of experiencing the world.

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

All this is rather pretentious and fey to even talk about, but Flannery O'Connor sat down to write stories. The rest of us, some of us, don't have that kind of wit and genius. We don't do that. We sit down and have some accidents.

The writer can choose what he writes about but he cannot choose what he is able to make live.

Something about your life always makes its way into your stories. That's just the nature of the beast.

You know, as a writer, I'm more of a listener than a writer, cuz if I hear something I will write it down.

I probably have less revision than those who have that wonderful rush of story to tell - you know, I can't wait to tell you what happened the other day. It comes tumbling out and maybe then they go back and refine. I kind of envy that way of working, but I just have never done it.

When I'm writing, I don't really have much other guide than, 'As a reader, how would I respond to this?'

It's hard to write an Evan Hunter novel because I really am starting from scratch. I'm assuming a new voice each time. The McBain voice is set.

I'm the kind of writer who thinks style is just as important as the story being told.

I made a deliberate choice to write something people would enjoy, not knock people out with 'Boy, he can really put a clause together!'

For me, inspiration isn't a sort of spark which lights the fire of the story. It's more like a thread, one of many, which you can tease out of a story once it's written, if you feel so inclined.

I have always used emotion as a writing tool. That goes back to me being on the stage.

I write in a rush of memory.

I prefer writing originals.

I'm writing another novel and I know what I'm going to do after, which may be something more like this again, maybe some strange mixture of fiction and non-fiction.

For every Scott Fitzgerald concerned with the precise word and the selection of relevant incident, there are a hundred American writers, many well-regarded, who appear to believe that one word is just as good as another and that everything which occurs to them is worth putting down.

I write. This is what I do. My job is to sit down with my vocabulary, select words, and decide what order they should be placed in an attempt to keep someone's attention and perhaps provide them with a laugh or two along the way.

I suspect there are two kinds of novelists. Those who have a point of view and have something to say and then write a novel in order to say that thing, and those of us who write the book in order to find out what we think about that thing.

I don't have a style. I just try to write what the story demands.

I write short stories. I write every day.

I'm here to get the story on to the page. It would be good to catch your attention, and I have to make you want to read on, and I suppose I prefer you don't actually think about the 'how' at all - the writing technique, the 'style', or even who it is that's putting this together.

Somebody said writing is easy, you just sit down at your typewriter and open a vein. It depends on the book. Some, I have to do quite a lot of research, which I like. Others are much closer to me.