Junot Diaz Quotes

I kept trying to write these books that were sort of outside of my realm, and I kept failing.

I have met so many people who say they've got a book in them, but they've never written a word. To be a writer - this may seem trite, I realize - you have to actually write.

As a writer, I've always been somebody who's been productive and hustled hard.

The main thing about writing is... writing. Sitting your butt down in the chair and doing the work.

I like writing. I get cranky when I can't. Yes, I write books back to back, and I work very hard on them.

The secret to being a writer is that you have to write. It's not enough to think about writing or to study literature or plan a future life as an author. You really have to lock yourself away, alone, and get to work.

I have to make myself write, sometimes. In the space between poems, you somehow forget how to do it, where to begin. It was good to be task - based for a while. I just came downstairs each day, picked the one I was going to do that day, and wrote.

People always ask, 'How do you write so many books?' And I say, I work a lot. I work six or seven days a week.

I can't write every day. I have to skip a day in between. If I try to do it every day, nothing comes.

At the outset, my notion of being a writer was that you would have moments of inspiration and moments of frustration, when you'd crumple up your pages and toss them away. On one side, the dustbin would fill up, and on the other side, pages would rise into a novel.

The problem with books, now that I've written one, is that the idea of adaptation is so much easier than sitting down to write something new.

I write everywhere. I've written books while I was on planes, at Disney World, and in multiple countries of which I am not a native. It can be a struggle to make word count sometimes, but I will persevere!

I've lost track of the number of people who want to be writers but never actually write anything. Talking about writing, dreaming about writing, can be very fun, but it won't get a book written. You've got to write.

I just write from dawn to dusk.

I said to Ruth Rendell, 'When you've written as many books as you have, it's easier.' She said, 'No dear, it gets harder'.

Not intending to be funny: I sit at the keyboard, put my fingers on the keys and go. To me, it's the real secret of writing. Put yourself in front of the screen or the blank sheet of paper and get to work.

I can see a scene in my head, and when I try to get it down in words on paper, the words are clunky; the scene is not coming across right. So frustrating. And there are days where it keeps flowing. Open the floodgates, and there it is. Pages and pages coming. Where the hell does this all come from? I don't know.

For any writers at all, read everything you can and then put your butt in the chair and write. That's all there is to it.

Many people think that it is important to have a title before you begin writing the book, but I think you should never sit around waiting for the right title to strike before you start writing. Crack on with the story, put in the hard work, and the title will come eventually.

The point always is to be writing something - it leads to more writing.

If you wish to be a writer, write.

Sometimes writing has to be forced. In starting out, the shape and timbre and texture of what is to come is an uncertain chimera shimmering from behind a veil. You must not wait, loiter, dilly-dally. You must force your way painfully through.

By the time I sat down to write 'Family Pictures,' I hadn't written anything in almost two years, and writing, I have discovered, is a muscle: if it isn't exercised, it will atrophy.

I have reached the point where I know that as long as I sit down to write, the ideas will come. What they will be, I don't know.

The real writer is one who really writes. Talent is an invention like phlogiston after the fact of fire. Work is its own cure. You have to like it better than being loved.