Tom Stoppard Quotes

In my experience, when you're writing, you want the truth, and you don't want to be apologetic in any way. But there is something in writing, the complexity of it, that works against that aim.

You become a great writer by writing.

I'm not a born writer, and I don't enjoy writing.

Somebody said writing is easy, you just sit down at your typewriter and open a vein. It depends on the book. Some, I have to do quite a lot of research, which I like. Others are much closer to me.

There are probably writers who are much more visual than I am and some who are less. I like to think of myself as a happy medium.

I have grown in my writing and I care about it now and I know how important it is to write stuff.

The task of a writer consists of being able to make something out of an idea.

The process of composition, messing around with paragraphs and trying to make really good prose, is hardwired into my personality.

The real trouble with the writing game is that no general rule can be worked out for uniform guidance, and this applies to sales as well as to writing.

I feel that I am a scholar who only with the left hand writes novels.

In effect I am not a novelist, but rather a failed essayist who started to write novels because he didn't know how to write essays.

I had to write about realistic circumstances. That's the way my brain works. And I think that gave me a sort of place in the field.

If you have a craftsman's command of the language and basic writing techniques you'll be able to write - as long as you know what you want to say.

I think if the writing comes too easily, it shows - it's usually hard to read.

Big Night and The Impostors are both things that I wrote.

It's very hard to articulate the things that are important about writing.

I envy those writers who outline their novels, who know where they're going. But I find writing is a process of discovery.

How can I impress strangers with the gem-like flame of my literary passion if it's a digital slate I'm carrying around, trying not to get it all thumbprinty?

There is no motivation higher than being a good writer.

I don't know how I do it, but I've written about everything. I've written about my shoes.

I have always found writing very difficult.

I want to be a better writer. I want to learn and grow, to know how to tell stories in a different and more challenging way. I've learned it doesn't get easier each time. It actually gets harder.

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 can't emphasize enough how much of a writer I am.

I think I personally, as a writer, read differently knowing how tough it is to write, knowing how challenging it is to articulate it, to express clearly and economically and with focus and with purpose.