Sherwood Smith Quotes

What I remember when I started to write was how I couldn't wait to get up in the morning to get to my characters.

Writing has never been a driving force within me.

Once I finished 'Eileen,' I wanted to write more novels. I don't see myself stopping any time soon.

I don't think there was a particular book that made me want to write. They all did. I always wanted to write.

Well, writing was what I wanted to do, it was always what I wanted to do. I had novels to write so I wrote them.

Writing was not a childhood dream of mine. I do not recall longing to write as a student. I wasn't sure how to start.

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

There is no trick to it. If you like to write and want to write, you write, no matter where you are or what else you are doing or whether anyone pays any heed.

I hold any writer sufficiently justified who is himself in love with his theme.

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.

Writing is my love. If you love something, you find a lot of time. I write for two hours a day, usually starting at midnight; at times, I start at 11.

I didn't do any writing seriously until I was in my mid-twenties. But I've never really thought of myself as doing anything else. I've always wanted to write.

When I was eight years old, I wrote a paragraph-long short story about a goat on my mother's hundred-pound, black-and-white-screen laptop. The story came about largely because I liked the way the word 'goat' looked on the page, but I decided then and there that I wanted to be a writer. That desire never changed.

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 always wanted to be a writer, from being a little kid onwards. My dad and my mum both had phases when that was what they did.

You cannot write a book unless it is totally inhabiting your imagination and you are totally engrossed with it. Which is a kind word for obsession.

I love it when I start a book that is so good that all I want to do is get back to my own writing, in a competitive way.

I feel as if I'm clearly part of a trend among writers who take themselves seriously - and I confess to taking myself as seriously as the next writer.

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.

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.

I have been writing since I was old enough to spell. I have never considered not writing.

Screenplays I didn't really care about, journalism, travel books, getting my writer friends to write about their dreams or something. I just determined to write the books I had to write.

I have a curious background for someone who turns out to be a writer.

The first thing you have to understand is that I was not desperate to be a writer. I was never a closet writer filing away notes in a cupboard.

All stories I write are compulsive. Anything I've ever written was because I don't have a choice. I write stories because I can't wait to tell it, I can't wait to see how it ends.