Oscar Wilde Quotes

The desire to write a novel is the single required prerequisite for writing a novel.

There's still a part of me that thinks I have to write a really good novel. I'm not trying to say I'm not happy with the novels I've written in the past. But it always feels to me like there's another one that I have to write that will really say what I want to say, and really paint this world that I can see hazily in my head.

The novel is final form; it's the ultimate individual final form. Television and motion pictures never get there. You'd be fabulous to think that something you write is even going to be filmed. I give it the best shot of which I'm capable. But it's more a payday for me. And if I didn't have alimony and the full-time assistant.

I'd advise all you songwriters out there, if you're getting into it for the business, go home and get a job digging ditches or something. Get a life. You'll learn a lot more, and you won't write a lot of rotten poetry.

Despite all the cynical things writers have said about writing for money, the truth is we write for love. That is why it is so easy to exploit us.

Writing is its own reward.

I still encourage anyone who feels at all compelled to write to do so. I just try to warn people who hope to get published that publication is not all it is cracked up to be. But writing is. Writing has so much to give, so much to teach, so many surprises. That thing you had to force yourself to do - the actual act of writing - turns out to be the best part. It's like discovering that while you thought you needed the tea ceremony for the caffeine, what you really needed was the tea ceremony. The act of writing turns out to be its own reward.

In the end, for me, the sole single goal is to write the best novel that I can. Whether or not it gets made or gets purchased.

I got over the loss of his desk and chair, but never the desire to produce a string of words more precious than the emeralds of Cortés.

It's a feeling of happiness that knocks me clean out of adjectives. I think sometimes that the best reason for writing novels is to experience those four and a half hours after you write the final word.

Let me tell you one thing about why writers write: had I known the answer to any of these questions I would never have needed to write a novel.

There is no pleasure in the world like writing well and going fast. It's like nothing else. It's like a love affair, it goes on and on, and doesn't end in marriage. It's all courtship.

Write for the love of your art. Someplace down the road, the money, the fame, they'll come, but by that time you won't be thinking in terms of money or fame.

My sole literary ambition is to write one good novel, then retire to my hut in the desert, assume the lotus position, compose my mind and senses, and sink into meditation, contemplating my novel.

Writing poetry is the only form of literary labour which gives me entire satisfaction.

I find myself absolutely fulfilled when I have written a poem, when I'm writing one. Having written one, then you fall away very rapidly from having been a poet to becoming a sort of poet in rest, which isn't the same thing at all. But I think the actual experience of writing a poem is a magnificent one.

I don't enjoy any of the process of writing. I enjoy it when it goes on if it zings and it has great warmth and import and it's successful.

Don't write for money. Write because you love to do something. If you write for money, you won't write anything worth reading.

Most musicians remain poor. But the music that they make, even if it does not bring them millions, gives millions of people happiness.

I wouldn't say the purpose of making art is to enjoy it necessarily. For me, it happens to be the thing I enjoy the most. I don't even know what the purpose of art is really, I just know that is something that makes me feel satisfied in a way that other things don't. That's all I know, that's why I like to write songs and films or draw. I just like to make things and somehow I find it gives me a feeling of satisfaction that I can't find in other areas of my life.

For a creative person there's just as much pleasure in writing an eight-line poem as there is in writing a blockbuster play ... of the old '50s type.

I should think it extremely improbable that anyone ever wrote for money. Naturally, when he has written something, he wants to get as much for it as he can, but that is a very different thing from writing for money.

Write a novel if you must, but think of money as an unlikely accident. Get your reward out of writing it, and try to be content with that.

The best thing about being an artist, instead of a madman or someone who writes letters to the editor, is that you get to engage in satisfying work. Even if you never publish a word, you have something important to pour yourself into.

With writing and publishing, my only aim is to live in the aesthetic pleasure dome.