Anthony Burgess Quotes

To hold a pen is to be at war.

I kept trying to write these books that were sort of outside of my realm, and I kept failing.

As for how I feel about any success I've had, I just feel extremely lucky. Writing is a tough racket, and there are a lot of writers out there better than me who can't seem to catch a break.

I cannot imagine a sorrier pursuit than struggling for years to write a book that attempts to appeal to people who do not read in the first place.

I'm more or less happily writing Chapter Six of The Graveyard Book. I say more or less as I'm at that place where I hope that the book knows what it's doing because right now I don't have a clue - I'm writing one scene after another like a man walking through a valley in thick fog, just able to see the path a little way ahead, but with no idea where it's actually going to lead him.

I started in theater and I wanted to write plays, but I never really found an original voice as a playwright.

I suppose half of writing is overcoming the revulsion you feel when you sit down to it.

The history of my life is the history of the struggle between an overwhelming urge to write and a combination of circumstances bent on keeping me from it.

A friend came to visit James Joyce one day and found the great man sprawled across his writing desk in a posture of utter despair. James, what’s wrong?' the friend asked. 'Is it the work?' Joyce indicated assent without even raising his head to look at his friend. Of course it was the work; isn’t it always? How many words did you get today?' the friend pursued. Joyce (still in despair, still sprawled facedown on his desk): 'Seven.' Seven? But James… that’s good, at least for you.' Yes,' Joyce said, finally looking up. 'I suppose it is… but I don’t know what order they go in!

I don't think I'll write a large novel again because it was like being in jail for me. Even though that's the funniest book I've ever written, it was the saddest period of my life.

How did writing come to me? Like bird’s down on my windowpane, in winter. Just then there rose in the heart a struggle of firebrands, which has, still now, not ended.

But, later, coming back and reading what I have produced, I am unable to detect the difference between what came easily and when I had to sit down and say, "Well, now it's writing time and now I'll write.

It's hell writing and it's hell not writing. The only tolerable state is having just written.

I've never liked songs that are about writing, or struggling to write. Maybe it's because it's too relatable to me.

I struggle with confidence, every time. I’m never completely sure I can write another book. Maybe my scope is too grand, my questions too hard, surely readers won’t want to follow me here. A novel is like a cathedral, it knocks you down to size when you enter into it.

There are only two kinds of stories in the world: those about which I do not care to write as many as 600 words, and those about which I would like to write many more than 600 words. But there is nothing about which I would like to write exactly 600 words.

It's a very excruciating life facing that blank piece of paper every day and having to reach up somewhere into the clouds and bring something down out of them.

When I am writing, even though it's hard and I do struggle often, I am happier than when I'm not writing. I feel alive. Whereas when I'm not writing, I feel like your common every-day neurotic.

Writing is a necessity and often a pleasure, but at the same time, it can be a great burden and a terrible struggle.

If I had to write a book, I could not find anything in the world worth saying - as is indeed the case with many voluminous authors.

The hardest thing for me is getting started. If I'm writing a script, really 90 per cent of it would be just walking around, climbing the walls, just trying to put the idea together. Then the final 10 per cent would be writing it.

Every day one has to earn the name of 'writer' over again, with much wrestling.

I want to do a stripped-down album. That style is actually where my heart is - storytelling and just letting the voice and the lyrics talk for themselves. I still want to write the perfect song and sing it in the most honest, undressed way. But I feel like I have to gather more experiences and more layers in my voice. I have to live more to be able to tell this tale. So I'm saving my folk record. I have a feeling nobody will understand it.

I don't really have the gift of the sustained narrative that you need to write a book. I've tried a couple of times, and it just doesn't work. But I get some good passages, so what I'm going to do is just take sections out of them.

Vanity is so anchored in the heart of man that a soldier, a soldier's servant, a cook, a porter brags and wishes to have his admirers. Even philosophers wish for them. Those who write against vanity want to have the glory of having written well; and those who read it desire the glory of having read it. I who write this have perhaps this desire, and perhaps those who will read it.