Jack Kerouac Quotes

Because anybody can write, but not everybody invents new forms of writing. Gertrude Stein invented a new form of writing and her imitators are just "talents."

If you write with passion in your own style, you will make a place for yourself

If you write well, you don't have to dress funny.

Hemingway sucks. If I set out to write that way, it would have been been hollow and lifeless because it wasn't me.

Writing that flirts with incoherence can just as readily flounder as writing characterized by simplicity and composure. There is no reliable formula for originality, and strategies that are distinguished as innovative in their first incarnation can quickly become stale in the hands of lesser artists.

If you don't have a unique voice, then you're not really a writer.

A good writer does not write as people write, but as he writes.

So remember these two things: you are talented and you are original. Be sure of that. I say this because self-trust is one of the very most important things in writing.

A writer writes what he knows, in ways that are natural to him.

Style is to forget all styles.

The thing is, with writing, it's form or content. You need to write about something interesting or you need to write about it in an interesting way.

Write what you want to read. So many people think they need to write a particular kind of book, or imitate a successful style, in order to be published. I've known people who felt they had to model their book on existing blockbusters, or write in a genre that's supposed to be "hot right now" in order to get agents and publishers interested. But if you're writing in a genre you don't like, or modeling yourself on a book you don't respect, it'll show through. You're your first, most important reader, so write the book that reader really wants to read.

Style is the thing that's always a bit phony, and at the same time you cannot write without style.

To idealize: all writing is a campaign against cliché. Not just clichés of the pen but clichés of the mind and clichés of the heart.

Since great writers communicate a vision of existence, one can't borrow their methods. The method is married to the vision.

There has to be a certain relationship between the life and the writing style, and that is really a problem.

A man who writes well writes not as others write, but as he himself writes; it is often in speaking badly that he speaks well.

An original writer is not one who imitates nobody, but one whom nobody can imitate.

Don't try to be original. Be simple. Be good technically, and if there is something in you, it will come out.

It's a sort of philosophy you cook up for yourself. You probably write things the same as everybody else, but it's your own personal way of saying things.

Assimilate all you can from tradition and then say things in your own way.

Don't be pretentious is my first advice to young writers. This is the big problem - just because you're getting an MFA doesn't mean you have to write for the Academy. Be true to your personality. Don't temper your personality down with words. Don't build defensive fortresses around yourself with words - words are your friends.

I don't have a style. I wouldn't say I have a style as a writer, either. I know people have said "This is what he does," but when I'm writing, I don't think about that. I don't think about a style.

Good style happens in one of two ways: the writer either has an inborn talent or is willing to work herself to death to get it.

You've got to concentrate on the business of entertaining and writing songs. Always think different from the next person. Don't ever do a song as you heard somebody else do it.