Patti Davis Quotes

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

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.'

There's a mystery to writing, and you don't really know where most of it comes from.

I don't know any writer for whom it comes easily. Maybe John Updike - a story would just seem to come to him whole, you know, out of a personal experience. But the rest of us, I think, are not so lucky, and I had to work hard, yeah.

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.

I'm a writer who likes to be influenced.

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.

I enjoy writing.

I don't actually have a one wellspring of inspiration. Though I'm most often inspired while reading - both fiction and nonfiction.

The first book you write because of the way it makes you feel. The second one you can't help but wonder how it's going to make the reader feel.

Neophyte writers tend to believe that there is something magical about ideas and that if they can just get a hold of a good one, then their futures are ensured.

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

Before Arthur, I'd dismissed altogether writing fiction. You only have so many semi-sharp arrows in your quiver, I'd told myself, and I was not going to be able to write a novel.

Now I'm not an author, I'm a writer, that's all I am.

I might be into writing... I'd like to try it someday. I always come up with some good ideas.

I want to write more, because I think I've got a story to tell.

I enjoy talking to groups who are interested in the writing process or the industry. I never teach - because truthfully, I don't know how it all works; it just does. Sort of magic-like. But I love to share my experiences and perspectives.

The biggest mistake you can make is assuming that creativity will hit you all at once and the muse will carry you to the end of the book on feather wings while 'Foster the People' plays gently in the background. Storytelling is work. Pleasurable work, usually, but it is work.

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.

I have come to understand and appreciate writers much more recently since I started working on a book last fall. Before that, I thought golf writers got up every morning, played a round of golf, had lunch, showed up for our last three holes and then went to dinner.

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.

Novel writing is solitary work.

Everything a writer learns about the art or craft of fiction takes just a little away from his need or desire to write at all. In the end he knows all the tricks and has nothing to say.

I never thought about what I would write. I just come from such a big family of storytellers.