L. E. Modesitt Jr. Quotes

I'm a writer who likes to be influenced.

Write the best book you can, the one that demands to be written, no matter what genre it is. Even a trend the trades tell you has gone stale can be revitalized by a superb piece of writing. It'll never be revitalized by someone jumping on a trend bandwagon.

I still write the same way and have the same perspective.

I've always liked new writing.

No one can teach writing, but classes may stimulate the urge to write. If you are born a writer, you will inevitably and helplessly write. A born writer has self-knowledge. Read, read, read. And if you are a fiction writer, don't confine yourself to reading fiction. Every writer is first a wide reader.

You can't learn to write in college. It's a very bad place for writers because the teachers always think they know more than you do - and they don't. They have prejudices. They may like Henry James, but what if you don't want to write like Henry James? They may like John Irving, for instance, who's the bore of all time.

Now I'm not an author, I'm a writer, that's all I am.

I want to write more, because I think I've got a story to tell.

I have written ever since I knew mechanically how to do it.

It took many years to accept that fantasy is the fuel for my storytelling passion, and without that, I really am a hack, writing for money or approval rather than for the pure delight of storytelling.

The best way to become a successful writer is to read good writing, remember it, and then forget where you remember it from.

Give me good writing, and I'll play it all day.

There are two kinds of writers; the great ones who can give you truths, and the lessor ones, who can only give you themselves.

I don't call myself a writer.

I've been writing, in one way or another, for as long as I can remember.

Don't let anyone tell you there's only one way to write.

I like writing my own material - I'm pretty good at it.

People love talking about writers as storytellers, but I hate being called that: it suggests I got it from my grandmother or something, when my writing really comes out of silence. If a storyteller came up to me, I'd run away.

I'm not one of those authors who claims to hear voices in my head or 'let the characters speak through me,' whatever that might mean.

What provides you with subject matter is your own language - and that's all.

As an observer, I'm analysing my reactions, I guess, and my thinking; but about the process of writing... I am not very talented at talking about what I do as a writer.

Ultimately, you've got to have something to say, so a writer should continue learning things throughout life. But I don't think education makes one a writer.

I've been writing for a long time.

I think all writers have a style, a particular voice and rhythm that you have to find.

I think that successful writers somehow capture truths that resonate with readers.