Fay Weldon Quotes

A man who writes well writes not as others write, but as he himself writes; it is often in speaking badly that he speaks well.

Little by little, writers develop their own styles, each as unique as a fingerprint.

A good writer does not write as people write, but as he writes.

Style is made up of whatever an author can't avoid doing.

If you write with passion in your own style, you will make a place for yourself

Hemingway sucks. If I set out to write that way, it would have been been hollow and lifeless because it wasn't me.

I don't enjoy lettering very much, but that's the way I write and that belongs in the strip because the strip is a reflection of me.

The original writer is not he who refrains from imitating others, but he who can be imitated by none.

I think writing is a much more personal thing.

Writing is not a competitive sport. Everyone that writes has his or her own voice.

All writers are mimics, and I'm not interested in picking up somebody else's style or voice.

When I teach writing, I have a mantra: 'Be a first-rate version of yourself, and not a second-rate version of another writer.'

I write the way I write.

I don't know if there is any one secret to successful writing, but one important step is to move beyond imitation and discover what you can write that no one else can - that is, find out who you are and write that in an appropriate narrative and style.

Each book tends to have its own identity rather than the author's. It speaks from itself rather than you. Each book is unlike the others because you are not bringing the same voice to every book. I think that keeps you alive as a writer.

It is one test of a fully developed writer that he reminds us of no one but himself.

I think that I've just kind of found my niche, if that makes sense. I still write the same, but I feel like I've found what separates me, and I always try to stay in that when I write. It took me a long time to discover that, so I try to be protective.

A word is not the same with one writer as with another. One tears it from his guts. The other pulls it out of his overcoat pocket.

I thought Cheever was magnificent and that if I could write like him that would be the best I could do. And then I realized that what I really wanted to write had nothing to do with what he was doing.

I believe that, like most writers, my personality comes through in the fiction. So in that respect my writing can't be like any other author's really.

I believe an editor's job is to help a writer sound like himself or herself.

I think you can't help but write in your own voice.

I think it's important to add a personal aspect to your music - that's what makes it authentic at the end of the day.

I would like to be able to write in my own voice.

I like artists with a life, where it's not this universal thing anybody could sing. I want them speaking to me in only a way that they can. To me, that's what makes it good.