Stephen Malkmus Quotes

I first tried a novel when I was 14. First finished one when I was 16. First started working on stuff that had a chance of being salable in my early 20s, then didn't write much fiction at all because I was in grad school.

I started out as a writer of fiction, but nobody wanted to publish my work as a young man. So I decided to put my interest in the narrative writing of biographies.

I'm a novelist at heart. How's that? And that's how I make my living, is I write novels.

Though The Kite Runner was my first completed novel, I had been writing on and off for most of my life, primarily short stories, and primarily for myself.

When I first started writing, I wrote a book called 'Bruiser,' and it was pretty much set in Chicago.

I saw novelists as being admirable people and I thought... I thought... maybe, one day, I could be one of them.

Sometime around 2006, I decided I had missed my true calling as a young adult author.

After I'd been a lawyer for about five or six years, I started playing around with fiction.

I think I would like to write screenplays, books, really anything.

When I want to read a novel, I write one.

I had a series of terrible jobs, whatever would allow me to write for four hours during the day. During that time I wrote three novels - all of which were extraordinarily poor. I decided after that to go and get my MFA.

Ironically, writing a novel is not a way to sort out your confusion.

Returning to writing fiction after 13 years away from it. Returning to the rootstock of my whole life as a writer. It's what I had wanted to be for my entire life, since I can remember, since my particular time immemorial. It's how I got my start as a writer.

Books are great for if you want to work on the craft of writing for yourself, or, you know, to write novels or indie films, stuff like that.

I always wanted to write. While I was on a long surf trip, supporting myself with various day jobs, I was working hard on a novel. My third novel, in fact.

I certainly wake up every morning and thank God that I'm not a novelist because the theater is tough, but novel writing is infinitely harder. Especially with the economics of serious fiction being what they are in America.

Writing is my number one passion. I've written two novels. I've written a screenplay. I also write short stories and poetry.

You never learn how to write a novel. You just learn how to write the novel that you're writing.

I don't know when I made that active decision to be a writer or to try to write, but I know I always liked storytelling.

I've often thought I would like to try to write a conventional novel, but I just don't know enough about the real world to write one.

Most people can start a short story or a novel. If you're a writer, you can finish them. Finish enough of them, and you may be good enough to be publishable.

Writing a novel proved to be the hardest, most self-analyzing task I had ever attempted, far worse than an autobiography: and its rewards were greater than I expected.

Writing novels is an essentially amateur activity.

Writing novels takes up about 100% of my available working time.

I want to write novels. I want to write stories. I want to do the stuff that I became a writer to do.