Andrew Clements Quotes

It's a lot to expect of yourself, to write a novel in a year. Anyway, you don't write a novel, you write a scene, and then another scene.

I've been writing for a long time. I sat down to write my first novel in the middle of March of 1982.

Every day I fantasise about situations and little themes I see in front of me that would make a good beginning of a story. But one has to be disciplined and just sit down and do it.

Don't romanticise your 'vocation.' You can either write good sentences or you can't. There is no 'writer's lifestyle.' All that matters is what you leave on the page.

You write, hoping to write a good book; that's it.

The most common thing I find is very brilliant, acute, young people who want to become writers but they are not writing. You know, they really badly want to write a book but they are not writing it. The only advice I can give them is to just write it, get to the end of it. And, you know, if it's not good enough, write another one.

I'm always working on my next novel, even when I'm not.

I write every day. I'm always in the process of writing my last book, until the next one.

I have to make myself write, sometimes. In the space between poems, you somehow forget how to do it, where to begin. It was good to be task - based for a while. I just came downstairs each day, picked the one I was going to do that day, and wrote.

For any writers at all, read everything you can and then put your butt in the chair and write. That's all there is to it.

I started writing when I was about 20, 21 maybe.

Luckily I haven't fallen into the trap, which has claimed so many writers, of living from day to day thinking 'Ah, I'll write a book about that.'

How do we live the writer's life? There's only one simple answer: 'we write.'

The point always is to be writing something - it leads to more writing.

I'm very interested in writing - it just takes so much discipline, whether it's short stories or novels.

I like writing. I get cranky when I can't. Yes, I write books back to back, and I work very hard on them.

If you want to be a writer, just write. There's no magic to it.

The writer's duty is to keep on writing.

The only real advice you can give anyone is to keep writing.

Many writers who choose to be active in the world lose not virtue but time, and that stillness without which literature cannot be made.

When I started writing fiction, I knew how good it was immediately.

Going off the road just leaves me more time to be a writer.

Some people take 10 years to write a book and some can do one in under a year.

When I am occupied with a work that requires continuity - a novel, for example - I write every day.

I write everywhere. I've written books while I was on planes, at Disney World, and in multiple countries of which I am not a native. It can be a struggle to make word count sometimes, but I will persevere!