Emma Healey Quotes

The first thing you have to understand is that I was not desperate to be a writer. I was never a closet writer filing away notes in a cupboard.

I don't think I'll ever stop writing. I write almost every day. I'd write plays even if they were never done again. You're at the mercy of whatever talent you have.

I can't envisage stopping writing.

I think that like all writers - and if any writer disagrees with this, then he is not a writer - I write primarily for myself.

Ninety-five percent of all writers who write do not get published, but 100 percent of all writers write because they have a voice in their head. The vast majority of writers simply write because they have to.

I write about what haunts me, and I write the books I myself am dying to read. I love it. I can't think of anything I'd rather do.

I want to offer a word of encouragement to authors: You have to feel called to the message of your book enough that you want people to get that message. When you get to that place, your passion goes through the roof, and then the other stuff happens.

Being a writer was never a choice, it was an irresistible compulsion.

I never wanted to be a celebrity writer. I wanted to be a good writer. I'm still trying to be a good writer. That's what gets me out of bed in the morning.

I'm not driven. I love writing. My imagination is always working. I write when I have time, and life allows me the time.

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.

Writing is a passion I have never understood, yet a storyteller is all I have ever wanted to be.

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

The point really is that a writer tends to write a book that he or she tends to write. It's as simple as that. Of course, it's important to make a living and all that, but the main impulse as far as I'm concerned - and I'm sure as other writers are concerned - is to tell a story that I feel impelled by.

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 don't think there was a particular book that made me want to write. They all did. I always wanted to write.

Any writer will be happy and good only if they know what they're doing and why they're doing it.

No one was going to stop me from writing and no one had to really guide me towards science fiction. It was natural, really, that I would take that interest.

Well, writing was what I wanted to do, it was always what I wanted to do. I had novels to write so I wrote them.

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.

It's painful to consider anything but writing.

I have been writing since I was old enough to spell. I have never considered not writing.

I write as a matter of need - seven books and God knows how many short stories before anyone published me.

The best books come from someplace inside. You don't write because you want to, but because you have to.

I think there must be something wrong with me as a writer. Because all my friends who are writers find reasons to hate everything about their day. But I just love writing. I love starting the day with language and seeing if I can make something of it.