Paula McLain Quotes

I guess you could say I've been writing all my life.

I was a 'learn by doing' writer - I never took any formal writing classes. So it took a long time to figure things out and find my voice.

I have learned many things in the 30 years that I have been writing.

I've taken every writing class I've had available. I took classes in high school, and I took English and writing classes in community college, but I dropped out of college. I also attended a local writing workshop two years ago.

I've been writing since I was really young, so I considered myself a writer for a really long time.

One of the things you get to do as a writer is that you get to learn new stuff all the time, and I hope that I'm a better writer when I'm 70 than I was when I was 30. That's one of the great things about a literary career.

Writing is writing. It's an abiding, wonderful talent, craft, gift that stays with you your whole life. And you can go in different forms, and you can try them. Look at me: I'm writing novels because I found something I love because I tried it.

I think most fiction writers naturally start by writing short stories, but some of us don't. When I first started writing, I just started writing a novel. It's a hard way to learn to write. I don't recommend it to my students, but it just happens that way for some of us.

I don't think many of us launched ourselves into the world of writing books fully formed.

I studied writing at NYU. I graduated high school in Nashville and then went to the creative writing program, and in the first year, that's when I wrote 'Kids.'

I've been writing since I was 19.

I've been writing for a long time.

I always wanted to write. But honestly I'm glad I didn't do it back when I was twenty-five or so, when it's now clear to me that I was a very poor writer and could've ruined my career before it even started.

I was always writing, since I was, like, 12.

I've been writing since I was 12 years old.

If you write enough, you begin to learn to do things. But in a way, you do start from zero each time.

When I went to college I took a creative writing class and decided in a week to be a writer.

I was never born to write. I was taught to write. And I am still being taught to write.

You cannot teach creativity - how to become a good writer. But you can help a young writer discover within himself what kind of writer he would like to be.

'EIla Enchanted' began in a marvelous writing course at New York City's The New School.

I became a copy boy. Not for long. I started writing stories.

I write all the time - I write poetry, I love to write.

All experience helps when you write.

There's a lot of young authors out there, and people do seem to forget: in order to write well, you do need to have some experience.

I wrote fiction during my entire childhood, from age 4 to 18, and started writing plays when I went to Yale and Oxford.