Joseph Haydn Quotes

You become a great writer by writing.

I have friends who are capable of writing a very rough draft and then going back and embroidering - they're sort of the cathedral builders of fiction. I never really know what I'm doing, and all my pleasure's on the level of the line.

I don't find writing easy. That is because I do take great care: I rewrite a lot. If anything is sort of clumsy and not possible to read aloud to oneself, which I think one should do... it doesn't work.

I've never been a believer in the word-count thing. I write slowly and tinker with the words and the word order, and I throw a lot of stuff out.

I don't write drafts. I write from the beginning to the end, and when it's finished, it's done.

I don't find writing easy. That is because I do take great care; I rewrite a lot.

What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.

Some writers sit down without a thought of what they are going to say, and they go through draft after draft.

If you're going to write a good book, you have to make mistakes and you have to not be so cautious all the time.

When I'm writing something, I try not to get analytical about it as I'm doing it, as I'm writing it.

You know how some people write every day at a certain point? I'm not like that. I carry something around for a long time. I weigh the words and the sentences. I weigh the paragraphs. The process is much more meditative for me.

I know many writers who first dictate passages, then polish what they have dictated. I speak, then I polish - occasionally I do windows.

I write when the urge hits me, getting the words down as fast as I can type and then I step back from what I just wrote and start a dialectical process where I begin challenging my own writing.

One mistake with beginners in writing is, that they think it important to spin out something long. It is a great deal better not to write more than a page or two, unless you have something to say, and can write it correctly.

I think about the sentence a long time, and then I write it. I don't revise it once it's set down.

I'm a very laboured writer. I hammer it out sentence by sentence, and it takes a long time. That's what the work is, right? To make the reader think it is not hard to do.

I'm just a slow writer. I'm picky and careful and fastidious.

If you are careful about the content and writing style, readers will not feel that you are in a hurry.

When you are a writer, the assist-to-turnover ratio... there are a lot more turnovers than assists.

I write dozens and dozens of pages more than I need, and then edit them down to size. It's more like sculpture than construction.

When I write, I feel like an optometrist, constantly flipping between lenses and asking, 'Is this better? Is this?' Slowly, the work comes into focus.

Write something and leave it aside so you've practically forgotten it as much as possible, a month or so, then come back and read it as if you're reading it for the first time.

I work very hard at each story, at every sentence.

I'm still learning so much with every play I write. So I wrestle with word choice, rhythm in final drafts. I think you have to be ruthless.

The writing process is not just putting down one page after another-it's a lot of writing and then rewriting, restructuring the story, changing the way things come together.