Chuck Palahniuk Quotes

There is no trick to it. If you like to write and want to write, you write, no matter where you are or what else you are doing or whether anyone pays any heed.

I mean it's the writing, not the being read, that excites me.

It is impossible to discourage the real writers - they don't give a damn what you say, they're going to write.

That has to remain the principal reason for doing it, doesn't it? I know it's possible to write for money, and many very good writers have done so. But for me, it has to remain the principal thing that I actually want to do the writing.

I write because I love doing it.

To write has to be related to a drive inside.

I want to write because I have the urge to excel in one medium of translation and expression of life. I can't be satisfied with the colossal job of merely living. Oh, no, I must order life in sonnets and sestinas and provide a verbal reflector for my 60-watt lighted head.

From when I was a kid I wanted to write. It was so important to me that I was writing my own material.

I tried to write a TV series, and then I discovered first of all that I love writing more than anything on this earth, and that you could write exactly as well as you want to.

It's hard to explain how much one can love writing. If people knew how happy it can make you, we would all be writing all the time. It's the greatest secret of the world.

People who write for reward by way of recognition or monetary gain don't know what they're doing. They're in the category of those who write; they are not writers. Writing is simply something you must do. It's rather like virtue in that it is its own reward. Writing is selfish and contradictory in its terms. First of all, you're writing for an audience of one, you must please the one person you're writing for. Yourself.

In matters like writing and painting, a man does what he has to do - if he has to write, why then, he writes; and if he doesn't feel the urgent need of writing, there are dozens of professions in which it is easier to earn a comfortable living.

There's only one good reason to be a writer-we can't help it! We'd all like to be rich, famous and successful, but if those are our goals, we're off on a wrong foot...I just wanted to earn enough money so I could work at home on my writing.

If what you want to do is write, then it's madness not to do it.

Don't write for money. Write because you love to do something. If you write for money, you won't write anything worth reading.

So I write mainly for the fun of it, the hell of it, the duty of it. I enjoy writing and will probably be a scribbler on my dying day, sprawled on some stony trail halfway between two dry waterholes.

To me the question is always this: if a ray of light came out of the sky and said, "Your next book will never be published - would you still write it?" If the answer is yes, the book is worth writing.

Even if I knew for certain that I would never have anything published again, and would never make another cent from it, I would still keep on writing.

I decided very early that I wanted to write. But I didn't think of it as a career. I didn't even think of it as a profession... It was the most exciting thing, the most powerful thing, the most wonderful thing to do with my life.

I write for the love of writing. If I never published another book, I would still be writing stories.

Writing is as big a part of my career as acting is, financially and time wise. So, yeah, I love it. That's all I wanted to do since I was young was be a writer. So that and acting are the two most important aspects of my career.

I spent many years of my life as an economist and demographer. I was finally distracted by writing my novels and poetry. I'm enormously happy that was the case. I feel that with writing I have found my metier.

I always counsel aspiring novelists that passion is the most important quality for a writer to possess - technique can be taught, but that relentless desire to write has to come from within.

The only real reason to write professionally is that you love it enough.

I like to write and that's why I write. I don't think about how much the book will sell.