Ngaio Marsh Quotes

You write about what you know.

I write about what I know.

That's my gutsy advice to any young writer: write only about what you know well.

I usually don't have to do a lot of research in my work, as I'm writing about something I'm already familiar with.

Read as much as you can, and then sit down and write.

Anything you read can influence your work, so I try to read good stuff.

The reason why so few good books are written is that so few people who can write know anything.

If you're going to write, you're going to have to force yourself to really study the world.

You can only really write about what you know about.

I kind of do all of this writing as a way of thinking and learning. I'm sure it's similar to being a journalist: You get to learn, and that's the greatest kind of job.

I think anyone can write about anything that they have knowledge of and exposure to.

Write about what you know, that's what I say.

Write about what you know, and what do you know better than your own secrets?

I don't want to tell people what to think. I'm the least qualified person in the world for that. If I'd go around pretending to be the expert on everything, I'd become Dan Brown, and I don't understand that. We all do our research if we're good writers, and we all work hard to get it right, but that doesn't mean we're experts in the field. The best we can do is challenge people to learn the facts themselves.

To be a writer you should read, write and talk to people, hear their knowledge, hear their problems. Be a good listener. The rest will come.

Don't write about that which you don't know.

Write what you know will always be excellent advice for those who ought not to write at all. Write what you think, what you imagine, what you suspect!

A novelist has to know enough about a subject to fool the passenger next to him on an airplane.

For me writing is a long, hard, painful process, but it is addictive, a pleasure that I seek out actively. My advice to young writers is this: Read a lot. Read to find out what past writers have done. Then write about what you know. Write about your school, your class, about your teachers, your family. That's what I did. Each writer must find his or her own kind of voice. Finally, you have to keep on writing.

If I'm reading something I happen to know and gets it wrong, I just don't trust the book any more. What I ask of a novel I'm reading is that it should know a fraction more about the things I know than I do. When I'm writing...I ask myself: would I be convinced by this if I read it? If I knocked against this bit of scenery, would it feel solid?

I would have every man write what he knows and no more.

...there are two kinds of writing: the one you write and the one that writes you.

Go where the pleasure is in your writing. Go where the pain is. Write the book you would like to read. Write the book you have been trying to find but have not found. But write. And remember, there are no rules for our profession. Ignore rules. Ignore what I say here if it doesn't help you. Do it your own way. Every writer knows fear and discouragement. Just write.The world is crying for new writing. It is crying for fresh and original voices and new characters and new stories. If you won't write the classics of tomorrow, well, we will not have any.

Reread, rewrite, reread, rewrite. If it still doesn't work, throw it away. It's a nice feeling, and you don't want to be cluttered with the corpses of poems and stories which have everything in them except the life they need.

Writing does not exclude the full life; it demands it.