Susan Orlean Quotes

I'm not a writer who teaches. I'm a teacher who writes.

I find it both fascinating and disconcerting when I discover yet another person who believes that writing can't be taught. Frankly, I don't understand this point of view.

People say you can't teach writing, but I think that's nonsense.

When I began to be published, people got the idea that I should 'teach writing,' which I have no idea how to do and don't really believe in.

Nothing teaches great writing like the very best books do. Yet, good teachers often help students cross that bridge, and I have to say that I had a few extraordinary English teachers in high school whom I still credit for their guidance.

For example, many colleges in their writing programs teach some of my work.

A creative writing program is only as good as its teachers, and I was fortunate in having two great writers as mentors.

There is a whole industry in America of people who want to write, and those who teach it. Even if the students don't end up writing, what's good about them taking the courses is, they become great readers, learning to appreciate the writing.

I never was a big believer that you can teach writing per se.

Read a lot. Write a lot. Have fun.

You become a great writer by writing.

I started writing by doing small related things but not the thing itself, circling it and getting closer. I had no idea how to write fiction. So I did journalism because there were rules I could learn. You can teach someone to write a news story. They might not write a great one, but you can teach that pretty easily.

I wrote small stories here and there, then bigger ones. Some were even written for money. I signed up for a writing class and snuck my first assignment on a yellow legal pad in a partner's office while he read through my memo.

I can't change overnight into a serious literary author. You can't compare apples to oranges. William Faulkner was a great literary genius. I am not.

I mean, the problem is, I think I'm a great writer.

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

I'm a great believer in the experiential theory of writing.

I never think that any writer can teach someone how to write.

For me, I used to be shy towards journalism because it wasn't poetry. And then I realized that the events that I covered in essays that became journalism were actually great because they inspired me, and they became my muse.

Writing can't be taught.

I'm not a great writer.

However great a man's natural talent may be, the act of writing cannot be learned all at once.

Many times, what people call 'writer's block' is the confusion that happens when a writer has a great idea, but their writing skill is not up to the task of putting that idea down on paper. I think that learning the craft of writing is critical.

Oddly enough, I never studied writing. I studied almost everything except writing.

You don't teach information in a writing workshop.