Ruth Prawer Jhabvala Quotes

I think if you feel like you were born to write, then you probably were.

I didn't set out to write. It was just something I always could do. Teachers would say, 'you really have this gift,' but I just didn't care.

I was always meant to be a writer. I've felt that way since I was a child.

I've written many nonfiction books, but that's a special gift.

Writing is writing. It's an abiding, wonderful talent, craft, gift that stays with you your whole life. And you can go in different forms, and you can try them. Look at me: I'm writing novels because I found something I love because I tried it.

Every journalist has a novel in him, which is an excellent place for it.

A lot of people ask me, 'Are you born a writer?' And I don't think it's necessarily true. I just think what you either have or you don't is this ability to see something that's complex and worth talking about.

I decided to become an author when my grandmother taught me to write, when I was six. I can still recall the sensation of being able to turn words into stories. It was a miracle.

I knew early on that I was going to be a writer. I think it's something rather like a curse that you're born with.

I've always been able to write. I've always been able to put a good essay in or say whatever I wanted to say through the pen. That was a gift of mine. I feel like it was what I was meant to do.

You can't teach somebody how to be a good writer.

Good writing of course requires talent, and no one can teach you to have talent.

It took me fifteen years to discover I had no talent for writing, but I couldn't give it up because by that time I was too famous.

I'm not sure if I always wanted to be a writer, but I was always writing.

Writers tell stories better, because they've had more practice, but everyone has a book in them. Yes, that old cliche.

I loved English, and I did very well in it. A lot of teachers encouraged me to write, and because of that, it later made me think it was possible to be a writer.

I've been writing since I was really young, so I considered myself a writer for a really long time.

I think writing is such a great talent, and if I was better, I would love to be a writer.

For me, being a writer was never a choice. I was born one. All through my childhood I wrote short stories and stuffed them in drawers. I wrote on everything. I didn't do my homework so I could write.

I've figured out in the course of my life that the one thing I'm good at doing is writing books, and it would be crazy to trade that in for something else.

I started writing when I was 9 years old. I was like this weird kid who would just stay in my room, typing little funny magazines and drawing comic strips.

I never think that any writer can teach someone how to write.

Nobody really knows whether they are a poet. I knew I was interested from the age of 15.

I just knew I would be a writer. It just seemed the only sensible thing to do.

I came from a family of incredible storytellers, but I didn't start writing children's books until I was 41 years old.