Alain de Botton Quotes

"The Diagnosis" had ten drafts of very significant changing, where I went through the whole book, wholesale and changed everything. Then the last year or so it was making small changes. I would do something and let it sit for three months... just brood about and decide I needed to slightly change something here or there. Or one character wasn't quite right. But I think everybody goes through this.

First drafts are never any good - at least, mine aren't.

I think it's almost impossible to edit something to death. I think you can make things better almost indefinitely.

I rewrote the ending of 'Farewell to Arms' 39 times before I was satisfied.

I have rewritten — often several times — every word I have ever published. My pencils outlast their erasers.

By the time you write the last page you have done half the book. The other half tends to get done in about five weeks; I do several drafts, very, very furiously rewriting. I literally do more or less nothing else and I stick with it and go through it and I begin to hate it.

A book is never finished; it's abandoned.

I rewrite a great deal. I'm always fiddling, always changing something. I'll write a few words - then I'll change them. I add. I subtract. I work and fiddle and keep working and fiddling, and I only stop at the deadline.

A good book isn't written, it's rewritten.

The advice I would offer to any writer is that even when you think you have revised your book to the point where you cannot look at it again, it is time to sit down and revise it some more.

You need not expect to get your book right the first time.

The writer’s life is a life of revisions.

I edit as I write. I revise endlessly. I don't go forward until I know that what I've written is as good as I can make it.

The whole joy of writing comes from the opportunity to go over it and make it good, one way or another.

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.

If you get a sense that your writing isn't quite working, change it. Or cut it out. Don't just tell yourself it'll do, because it won't.

I haven't had trouble with writer's block. I think it's because my process involves writing very badly. My first drafts are filled with lurching, cliched writing, outright flailing around. Writing that doesn't have a good voice or any voice. But then there will be good moments.

I'm a fairly fast, but sloppy writer, so I'm a big fan of re-writing, and re-writing again.

I write slowly. I actually write quickly, but I throw out so much material.

I've never been a believer in the word-count thing. I write slowly and tinker with the words and the word order, and I throw a lot of stuff out.

You always want to go out there with the best book possible, so I listen to what my editors say, and even if they don't know how to fix it, I always seem to find a way. 'Trust Your Eyes' is the best book I've written, and I don't know if I can do any better.

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 love arranging the words and having them fall on the ear the right way, and you know you're not quite there, and you're redoing it and redoing it, and there's a wonderful thrill to it. But it is hard. It's a job of tremendous anxiety for me.

When I write a book, I'm making it the best book I can.

I'm constantly revising. Once the book is written and typed, I go through the entire draft again.