Sarah Kay Quotes

Write from what you know into what you don't know.

I'm driven to go out and find new things to write about.

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

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.

When writing 'Give and Take' and 'Originals,' the predominant emotion for me was curiosity.

I’m not a fan of ‘write what you know.’ If you don’t know, find out. I knew nothing about the Bible before I started writing ‘The Year of Living Biblically.’ That was kind of the point – to learn.

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.

Paris is an ideal place to become informed, while Venice is a place to think and write.

I've got research, I have my own life experience I can apply, and I have my imagination.

Reading has been the fuel of my motivation: it has changed the direction in which I have traveled, and it has enhanced my creative imagination more than any other activity I have ever pursued.

Being a librarian certainly helped me with my writing because it made me even more of a reader, and I was always an enthusiastic reader. Writing and reading seem to me to be different aspects of a single imaginative act.

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

Books are challenging and inspirational to me.

You learn something new on every film.

I like learning things, and I like that writing comics is an excuse to look into new stuff and research and learn new things and hopefully put them in books.

Writing isn't necessarily about what one knows but what one wants to know.

What I love about research is when I'm having a bad day and I can't write, I'll just research some more, I'll learn some more and I'll have better command of the world of the film.

After writing fiction for so long, I like the discovery element of nonfiction, in the sense that when you find the right information, it feels like gold.

Find the key emotion; this may be all you need know to find your short story.

People say to write about what you know. I'm here to tell you, no one wants to read that, cos you don't know anything. So write about something you don't know. And don't be scared, ever.

Reading makes me want to write my own books, and just trying to understand what I see in the world around me makes me want to figure things out.

Science provides an understanding of a universal experience. Arts provide a universal understanding of a personal experience.

In order for me to write a scene, it's very important for me to see and experience everything with my own eyes, so yes, I was able to visit some remarkable houses and destinations while I was in China.

I get so much inspiration from my travels, but I also started an exercise where I write down so many words every week. Then I begin crossing them off. We create a grid of words and also images, but words for me are more ample because you can interpret them your own way.

I'm ever curious about the world. I'm driven to go out and find new things to write about. Having a vivid imagination is also a plus.