Donald Knuth Quotes

I don't feel I write fast. I write in longhand and do so much revision. On the page, it's so old-fashioned. I could write a whole novel on scrap paper, scribbles and things. I keep looking at it and something develops. For me, using a word processor would mean staring at a screen for too many hours.

I often write in pencil on paper and then type up later. It's much quicker than using a keyboard.

I write with pen and paper, my first draft, on legal pads.

I like the process of pencil and paper as opposed to a machine. I think the writing is better when it's done in handwriting.

I've always written by hand. Mostly with a fountain pen, but sometimes with a pencil - especially for corrections.

I do a lot of revising on paper. Sometimes I think I should just write longhand - what I type reads very different once I print it out.

I don't write with a machine. I write with a pen and a paper, which is what is most comfortable for me.

I have to re-write a lot. I couldn't tell you how many drafts I write, but I know I've done at least twenty rewrites on each book.

Each of my books took roughly one and a half years to write. Some may have taken a shorter time to write the draft and a longer time to revise, while others were the opposite.

I work by hand, with a fountain pen, in bound notebooks I buy in India.

I don't write directly on to the computer because I don't think well facing forward with fingers on a keyboard. I think better looking down holding a pen. And the concentration quotient of pen and paper is higher than when I'm moving words around on screen.

I have friends who are capable of writing a very rough draft and then going back and embroidering - they're sort of the cathedral builders of fiction. I never really know what I'm doing, and all my pleasure's on the level of the line.

Books aren't written - they're rewritten. Including your own. It is one of the hardest things to accept, especially after the seventh rewrite hasn't quite done it.

Some stories or passages are more difficult and demand more fussing with than others, but, in general, I'm a two-draft writer rather than a six-draft writer, or whatever.

I don't write drafts. I write from the beginning to the end, and when it's finished, it's done.

My writing routine is: get son off to school and sit down at 8 A.M. I read what I wrote the day before, and then write longhand, into a notebook. I prefer paper and pen because it feels closer to my brain.

When I write a book, I write very cleanly from page one to the last page. I hardly ever write out of sequence.

I'm not a big gadget guy. When I write, I'll do the whole thing by hand, and then I'll put it into the computer.

I write in longhand. I am accustomed to that proximity, that feel of writing. Then I sit down and type.

I like the physical action of writing down by hand, and I don't just use it for writing my fiction.

My first five novels were written longhand. So were hosts of short stories.

Some people like to purge out a draft and just let it go and then go back and fix it, but I'm a writer-rewriter. I can't move on until I feel like it's presentable.

I still write in long hand. I type like a chimpanzee.

Recently a study proved that working from a larger, less cluttered computer screen increases concentration. I could have told them that. And yes, I write first drafts with a mechanical pencil and a yellow legal pad. There's good reason for this primitive behavior: I am a crackerjack typist. My hand moves far more quickly than my brain.

The first drafts of my novels have all been written in longhand, and then I type them up on my old electric. I have resisted getting a computer because I distrust the whole PC thing. I don't think a great book has yet been written on computer.