Anita Diament Quotes

The only way to be a novelist, to think that you can create something others will give themselves up to for a dozen hours or more, is to have psychotic self-belief.

I tell people you should write what you love to read because that's where your passion is.

You should be writing for the love of the story, and when it comes time to return to the manuscript, everything else belongs behind a closed door.

When I write, I try to capture one of those pivotal moments. If I succeed, I have shifted the reader's view of the world, just a little. The character is not the only one to experience change. That is my job, shifting perceptions, one story at a time. The trouble is, I don't like writing. But I love having written.

I'm still in love with what I do, with the idea of making things up, so hours when I write always feel like very blessed hours to me.

And there are people who want to be writers because they love to write. And they care.

I started writing while I was a little boy. Maybe it's because I was reading a lot of books I admired, and thought that I would like to write something like that someday. Also, my love for good writing pushed me.

I love writing books - I really do. If I could just quit everything and work on a book every day, I would love that most.

I think I became a writer because of my love of stories and an inability to stop asking, 'What if?'

Love is the answer to everything. It's the only reason to do anything. If you don't write stories you love, you'll never make it. If you don't write stories that other people love, you'll never make it.

I don't think you can write - at least not well - if you don't love stories, love the written word.

I love to write. It's my first love.

I love writing. I've pursued it with a passion.

I became an author because I love words. I enjoyed playing with them when I was a kid, writing stories and plays, and doing whatever I could think to do with words. I kept my love of them growing up and still love to see what they can do.

And I love writing; I've been writing ever since I was seven.

It's that drama that drives authors, you know.

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.

If you love something - and there are things that I love - you do want more and more and more of it, but that's not the way to produce good work. So as an author, I need to write what I need to write.

I'm always writing. A friend of mine once said, 'You avoid re-writing by writing.' Which is kind of a good point, because re-writing seems to be mostly about craft, and writing is just, like, getting out your passion on a piece of paper.

I enjoy the research and love actually creating the words. There's not too much I find a drudge when it comes to writing.

I'm still not sure I want to be a writer. I think of myself as a storyteller more.

People love talking about writers as storytellers, but I hate being called that: it suggests I got it from my grandmother or something, when my writing really comes out of silence. If a storyteller came up to me, I'd run away.

Understand, I had absolutely no interest in writing; I wanted to be a Writer.

I despise writing in general, but yeah, I love writing the stuff that I direct.

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.