Danai Gurira Quotes

Somebody said writing is easy, you just sit down at your typewriter and open a vein. It depends on the book. Some, I have to do quite a lot of research, which I like. Others are much closer to me.

The good parts of a book may be only something a writer is lucky enough to overhear or it may be the wreck of his whole damn life and one is as good as the other.

A book comes and says, 'Write me.' My job is to try to serve it to the best of my ability, which is never good enough, but all I can do is listen to it, do what it tells me and collaborate.

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

I find contentment in the craft of writing and fulfillment in self-expression.

Writing a novel isn't like building a brick wall. You don't figure out how to do it, and then it gets easier each time because you know what you're doing. With writing a novel, you have to figure it out each time. Each time you start over, you just have the language and the idea and the hope.

Writing is nagging, fascinating, troublesome and exciting.

The nice thing about being a writer is that you can make magic happen without learning tricks.

I've always been a writer.

I feel like writing a book there's always a version in your head that's an amazing version, but then you write the version that you can write.

I write poetry anyway and have for years and years. For me, putting fiction and poetry together is like the best of both worlds.

I'm a writer who likes to be influenced.

Writing itself is a dream. There are days of self doubt and deadlines and wondering how you're going to pay the bills until you write that bestseller. But it's still the best job I've ever had. I've also been able to help a lot of people and even inspire a few and that feels great.

Writing's still the most difficult job I've ever had - but it's worth it.

Listen, I wrote 10 unsuccessful books before I broke through, so I'm looking all the time to keep my books fascinating. I want to write what people want to read, not push any message.

I am a writer - that is what I am before being a performer or musician. I love waking up in the morning and then going to sleep that night with something that did not exist.

How do we live the writer's life? There's only one simple answer: 'we write.'

I was always writing the books that I wanted to write, books that demanded to be written at the time. But, like most writers, you start off feeling your way.

Any writer worth the name is always getting into one thing or getting out of another thing.

I think writing is such a great talent, and if I was better, I would love to be a writer.

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.

The novel is resilient, and so are novelists.

I've always loved writing, and the impulse for me is storytelling. I don't sit down and think: 'What political message can I sell?' I love the creativity of it.

The opportunity to be a storyteller is the greatest thing in the world, and I feel so lucky and really love it.

There's a mystery to writing, and you don't really know where most of it comes from.