Caitlin Flanagan Quotes

I think all writers write from the time they're really young, and you just start asking the question, 'What if?'

A writer is always, always searching, even against her will, against all her better instincts, for the thread of a story. Everything is fodder. Everything is fuel. You can feel it coming on like the tingling of a sore throat. The brain never stops struggling to reshape every experience and feeling into a coherent narrative.

For the years I spent working on it, 'Constellation' was the only novel I knew how to write, so maybe I still abided by the maxim? Regardless, I prefer the maxim: Write what you want to know, rather than what you already know.

I didn't know anything about writers. It never occurred to me they were regular people and that I could grow up to become one, even though I loved to make up stories inside my head.

Writing was my route to creative expression, and I needed to write about the things that interested me.

My aunt got me interested in journalism - she found an old typewriter, had it worked over, put it on the dining room table, gave me a stack of paper and said, 'Play like you're a writer.'

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

I hope the wonder of what happens to my characters never goes away. That yearning keeps me writing.

I was reading a lot of books I admired, and thought that I would like to write something like that someday.

So, how to stay inside the world of entertainment without actually getting another job? I felt the only logical answer was to become a novelist. So I wrote the first book - driven by some very real feelings of desperation - and it worked.

As an author, I've never forgotten how to daydream.

I started writing morning pages just to keep my hand in, you know, just because I was a writer and I didn't know what else to do but write. And then one day as I was writing, a character came sort of strolling in and I realized, Oh my God, I don't have to be just a screenwriter. I can write novels.

I've been writing for as long as I can remember, and reading even before that. My mom still has stories that I wrote when I was in kindergarten. I was a reader and a re-reader. That's the main reason I became a writer.

I write simply because I hear voices of people in my head who won't give me peace until I convey their stories to the rest of the world. Seriously. They've always been with me. While other girls played with dolls, and my brothers with Hot Wheels, I was busy traveling through space or traipsing through graveyards with my imaginary playmates.

I don't think I knew I would be a writer. I wanted to become a writer, and I tried to write.

True confession time: I never know where a book is going. I get a gut feeling the story is there, then pursue it with the enthusiasm of a hunting tiger on a trail. If I knew where I was going, I'd get bored out of my mind and stop writing.

Suddenly, the idea of writing a book was like coming home. I didn't tell anyone except my wife, Clare. I just began.

I never thought about writing a novel until I was 13, and that happened by chance. I was on school holidays, and I was bored, and I thought I just wanted to do something to occupy myself instead of asking, 'What can I do, mum? Entertain me.' I started, and it really just took over, and I realised, 'Wow, this is an amazing experience.'

I wanted to be a writer. I wanted to say something about home.

I started to read at a very early age, and I just thought that books and reading were really the most wonderful thing that life had to offer. I think I wrote my very first piece of fiction at the age of 12, but then I didn't write any more for quite a long time.

People may get tired of hearing from me, but I don't think I'll ever run out of things that I want to write about.

I've been writing for years, you know, and when I get to a particular place, city, or different locale, I find myself first of all being challenged by those that love me to write more.

I had many different careers early on. I knew I wanted to be a writer. But, like so many people, I didn't know how to be one - other than just do it. I didn't know what form it would take.

I really like to entertain myself in various ways when I'm writing.

I think that I have every right to write a book. I think I'm interesting. I have perspective about me.