Al Alvarez Quotes

A.J. Liebling, one of my heroes, used to say that he could write better than anyone who wrote faster, and faster than anyone who could write better. I'm one nine-hundredth as good as Liebling, but that principle may slightly apply.

It is always difficult to get across to people who are not professional writers that a talent to write does not mean a talent to write anything at all.

I have always thought that writers come with any variety of attributes. Some are capable and some aren't.

Just because someone has stylistic limitations doesn't necessarily make them a worse writer.

Sean's a great, great writer.

There are seldom more than a couple of students in any workshop who seem natural writers.

There are probably many, many people who are better writers than me.

There are plenty of clever young writers. But there is too much genius, not enough talent.

I can write better than anybody who can write faster, and I can write faster than anybody who can write better.

We like to think about how smart we are. But I think talent as a writer is hard-wired in, it's all there, at least the basic elements of it. You can't change it any more than you can choose whether to be right handed or left handed.

The reason why so few good books are written is that so few people who can write know anything.

In writing I found something I could do at least as well as my peers, if not better.

I'm quite good at not writing.

While I wasn't very good at much else in school, in my creative-writing classes or when we had to do some writing in my English classes, I tended to do better at it.

I didn't set out to write. It was just something I always could do. Teachers would say, 'you really have this gift,' but I just didn't care.

My preference is for really good writing, and I just really don't care where it is.

I always had a gift with writing. I can really write. I always felt like I can write movies or somehow get into that.

George is so prolific as a writer.

I never write. Never! I do not even remember if I can write.

Learn to write well, or not to write at all.

Good writers are of necessity rare.

Writers - all writers, even screenwriters - like to make their mark. I don't think many screenwriters can write. They pass as writers.

Good writers are often excellent at a hundred other things, but writing promises a greater latitude for the ego.

I've figured out in the course of my life that the one thing I'm good at doing is writing books, and it would be crazy to trade that in for something else.

I can still put down some pretty nasty stuff on paper, which is what I enjoy doing.