Michael Tolkin Quotes

It is indeed difficult to make a living as a writer, and my advice to anyone contemplating a literary career is to have some other trade.

I got a couple of stories published, but the kind of money you were making for publishing a short story, I could see I wasn't going to make a living at it.

The profession of the writer has its thorns about which the reader does not dream.

Yes, it's hard to write. But it's harder not to.

There's a danger in romanticizing what it means to be a writer. Because what it really means is hard, hard work. It means tearing your hair out. Feeling like your head is about to explode.

Being a professional writer is not an easy way to make a living.

Which, of course, isn't the point of writing - but it would be nice if, along with the creative satisfaction of writing and seeing my work in print, I could do more than merely scrape a living. Okay, moaning over.

I'm a successful novelist, and I've been a lucky one, so I don't want to cry the poor mouth. Writing has never been easy.

I've had aunts and uncles who not only haven't read my books but could hardly believe that I was a writer.

You don't become a poet if you want to make any money.

I earn more than I thought I would when I became a poet.

On a more practical level, anyone out there who wants to be a writer should clearly recognize that this is a brutal business, where even incredibly talented people sometimes never make a living. If you want to chase such a dream, please have a Plan B in place.

It took me 40 years to write my first book. When I was a child, I was encouraged to go to school. I was not encouraged to follow the career of a writer because my parents thought that I was going to starve to death.

To be a working writer is the holy grail, where you don't have three other jobs on top of that.

I'm probably one of the few authors in this country who could very comfortably live off my writing.

Never, ever become a writer. It's a nightmare.

If you are a young writer today, it's very hard.

But the idea of a man making his living by writing seemed, in that hardy environment, so fantastic that even today I am sometimes myself assailed by a feeling of unreality.

Writing anything is terribly hard but, alas for me, because I am addicted, a heck of a lot of fun. I often am sorry I ever started writing prose, because it is so hard. But I can't stop.

I never imagined when I began writing in the early 1960s I'd become professional and my life would be transformed.

Mine is not a story to tell struggling writers.

Writing is the only profession where no one considers you ridiculous if you earn no money.

Scriptwriting is the toughest part of the whole racket... the least understood and the least noticed.

I had written children's books for 14 years before I published 'Wicked.' And none of them were poorly reviewed, and none of them sold enough for me to be able to buy a bed.

For almost anyone who chooses to be a writer, since so very few writers are able to learn a living from their work that is equivalent to the living earned by the average dentist or accountant.