Ann Patchett Quotes

There is no pleasure in the world like writing well and going fast.

I have a great amount of confidence and faith in my abilities to write. There are other areas of my life where I'm not as confident, and have not as much faith, but when it comes down to writing and working, I don't worry about it. I trust myself to get it right.

A person who can write a long letter with ease, cannot write ill.

I write fast, I write beautifully, I write convincingly.

I don't have the fear I won't be able to think of something else to write. It's what I do.

I don't think I'm a brilliant writer, but I'm a good writer, and it's just so empowering to get involved.

I feel more comfortable each time I sit down to write, but I'm determined to get better and better.

I know I can cut it with any songwriters in the world.

If you asked someone, 'Can you play the violin?' and he says, 'I don't know, I have not tried, perhaps I can,' you laugh at him. Whereas about writing, people always say: 'I don't know, I have not tried,' as though one had only to try and one would become a writer.

You can't write well what you don't read for pleasure. If it doesn't entertain you, it's not going to entertain anyone else.

By writing quickly we are not brought to write well, but by writing well we are brought to write quickly.

From writing rapidly it does not result that one writes well, but from writing well it results that one writes rapidly.

Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now.

I can draw and write, and you'd be foolish not to hire me.

Real seriousness in regard to writing being one of the two absolute necessities. The other, unfortunately, is talent.

A fluent writer always seems more talented than he is. To write well, one needs a natural felicity and an acquired difficulty.

I realized Michael was right. I mean, I am always writing in this journal. And I do compose a lot of poetry, and write a lot of notes and emails and stuff. I mean, I feel like I am always writing. I do it so much, I never even thought about it as a talent. It's just something I do all the time, like breathing.

Nothing can injure a man's writing if he's a first-rate writer. If a man is not a first-rate writer, there's not anything can help it much. The problem does not apply if he is not first rate because he has already sold his soul for a swimming pool.

For me writing is so perplexing, because if we were playing ping pong and we weren't writing - twenty years later you'd be just so much better at ping pong and this confidence with ping pong.

Learn to write well, or not to write at all.

Although there is no substitute for merit in writing, clarity comes closest to being one.

Good writers hate bad writing but hating bad writing doesn’t make you good. Writing badly does.

Writing is great because in the writing you never have to... First of all you never have to leave your home. And you never have to meet the test of reality when you're writing.

With every job you get more comfortable, you do better, you're more confident.