Paul Theroux Quotes

There is no adequate definition for creative writing, any more than it is possible to describe pain or flavor or color.

It is popular to believe that in order to see clearly one must believe nothing. This may work well enough if you are observing cells under a microscope. It will not work if you are writing fiction. For the fiction writer, to believe nothing is to see nothing.

Take it from me: I really love making things up, which is why I write fiction for a living.

If you get bored with nothing to do, you are not a writer ... We are in the business of reproducing reality from nothing. We are the biggest liars in the world, seeking truth.

Writing songs is no different than explaining to somebody what you dreamed last night: No one ever gives you crap for what you dreamed last night. "I was laying in my bed, and all of a sudden a stallion jumped on my bed and the next thing I know I was in Mars but it looked like my kitchen"... That's kind of what I do with my songs, write them in a dream-like manner. It's up to people to swallow it however they want.

A little autobiography and a lot of imagination are best.

Writers do not write what they know. They write what they can imagine.

I like to read fiction best and I like to write fiction, too.

Writing fiction is an act of imagination and fantasizing, and it's not relating in prose what you've been doing for the last two or three years.

The historian records, but the novelist creates.

I've been falsely accused of drawing too much from real life. But I am a petty thief - I take little things. And, I mean, I can hardly write 10 words before I start to make things up. I start to invent, because that's what I want to do. I'm running away to an invented place.

I was the kind of kid who was always making up stories and adventures.

I've always liked the idea that writing is a form of travel. And I started my writing career as a mystery novelist for adults.

Every now and then I'll do little things, a short story or something, that doesn't have any fantastical elements, but mostly I like the power of playing God and I like to imagine things.

I came up with a story and I wrote it.

The characters emerge from my rather twisted mind. That's another enjoyable part of the job making stuff up.

As fiction writers, we are entertainers.

I like novelists who can create other interesting worlds.

I think the idea of creating a character from scratch, one that has not been done in a novel or an existing story, is immensely exciting, terrifying and ultimately rewarding.

I don't see the world unless I see it in ink.

I can create countries just as I can create the actions of my characters. That is why a lot of travel seems to me a waste of time.

I began writing fictional stories and little screenplays when I was in fifth grade.

I like going back and writing fiction.

Most people who are trying to write kind of sit in their basements and pull it out of their imaginations.

While I was in high school, I discovered and began writing science fiction.