Robert A. Heinlein Quotes

I look upon this as I did upon the Dictionary: it is all work, and my inducement to it is not love or desire of fame, but the want of money, which is the only motive to writing that I know of.

I think it's a terrible thing to write and not enjoy it. It's a sad thing. But of course a lot of people do work because they need to eat. And we all need to eat, but that's not the only reason to work. You couldn't have paid me not to write.

I have been writing since I was about 20, and at first I wrote in secret and never showed anybody. I was very concerned about making a living, so I conducted.

I do know many a band out there, because believe me, we've played with most of them, who are together because they have to be. They might not talk to each other offstage, but they realize they can earn a living by going out and keeping that music alive.

I came into music just because I wanted the bread. It's true. I looked around and this seemed like the only way I was going to get the kind of bread I wanted.

Well, yes, as I was a rather bad actor then and I wasn't making enough money, I thought, to make enough money to not make money as an actor, I'd better do some writing.

I used to think that: whenever I heard that someone had taken 10 years to write a novel, I'd think it must be a big, serious book. Now I think, 'No - it took you one year to write, and nine years to sit around eating Kit Kats.'

No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.

All I do when I write scripts is think about food: 'Have I worked long enough to justify a walk to the kitchen?'

The idea that you could make a living from writing always thrilled me.

I have no taste for either poverty or honest labor, so writing is the only recourse left for me

I always start a book for money. If you're married five times you have to.

Nay, Sir, those who write in them, write well, in order to be paid well.

If nobody is looking for a story, and I have no reason to write a story, I would really much rather to do anything else because it's no fun writing stories, particularly not for me. I just do it in order to sell them and make a couple of bucks.

I wrote much because I was paid little. I had no great desire to leave a literary name behind me.

I didn’t do anything. I don’t have an explanation, I don’t know why I wanted to write. I did some short stories at that time, but very infrequently. I quit my job just to quit. I didn’t quit my job to write fiction. I just didn’t want to work anymore

It's okay to embark on writing because you think it will get you love. At least it gets you going, but it doesn't last. After a while you realize that no one cares that much. Then you find another reason: money. You can dream on that one while the bills pile up. Then you think: "Well, I'm the sensitive type. I have to express myself." Do me a favor. Don't be so sensitive. Be tough. It will get you further along when you get rejected. Finally, you just do it because you happen to like it.

People write because it seems like it'll be an easier job than carpet laying, that they might meet more girls. And they write because the world strikes them as being a marvelous place, and they want to keep bringing that to everybody's attention. You know ~ a scary place, a menacing place, an exciting place because it's scary and menacing. But mainly, kind of glorious.

[Writing] is harder than you think. You'll be rejected often. If you do it for money, you'll quit. Love it or don't do it.

Anybody who can write home for money can write for magazines.

Of the nude pictures: Sure I posed. I needed the money.

Money, money, all is money! Could you write even a penny novelette without money to put heart in you?

I write every day. I don't have a writing schedule. I write when I feel like it. Fortunately I feel like it all the time. I am writing for hours.

I don't think I could form my writing into scripts or novels. It's so sporadic. My writing's pretty poor. I often think, "Who's this for?" Sometimes it's impressions of the day or my life, or it's fiction. Sometimes it's about things I want to remember, or I try to write in really awful French.