Tracy Kidder Quotes

It is really important that focusing on things such as spelling, punctuation, grammar and handwriting doesn't inhibit the creative flow. When I was at school there was a huge focus on copying and testing and it put me off words and stories for years.

I'd like to take a course in writing. I'm not the best writer in the world. I'd like to write more neatly, even though people don't send many handwritten letters these days.

Writing is just very difficult. I'm an adequate performer. And I think I have a special talent as an editor. Editing is what I do best.

Writing is not an unknown territory for me.

Doing interesting things and then writing about them is the best way to become a good writer.

My first true lesson in writing came from Mr. Bowden when I was 16. At my high school, he was the teacher known to be the very best at literature and writing.

Early on, it's good to develop the ability to write. Learning to write is a useful exercise, even if what you're writing about is not that relevant.

Writing is hard - writing is the hardest.

I have acting technique; I have singing technique; I don't have a writing technique to fall back on.

The training of a journalist, of working with words for thousands of hours, is extraordinarily useful for a fiction writer.

You can't be a storyteller and a speechwriter at the same time.

I have always found writing very difficult.

Because there is no better tool for writing than experience. It has very little to do with grammar and everything to do with knowing.

Writing is boring, very boring, and it takes so much patience.

Like most art forms, writing is part instinct and part craft. The craft part is the part that can be taught, and that can make a crucial difference to lots of writers.

I never took a writing class.

When people ask me for secrets to writing, I say, 'Read to write.'

I don't read books on how to write screenplays just because I'm stubborn. So it's all sort of made up.

I think technique can be taught but I think the only way to learn to write is to read, and I see writing and reading as completely related. One almost couldn't exist without the other.

I was never born to write. I was taught to write. And I am still being taught to write.

'EIla Enchanted' began in a marvelous writing course at New York City's The New School.

Favorite subject? I would have to say creative writing.

If you want to be a writer, don't worry so much about writing. Read as much as you can. Read as many different writers as you can. Soak up the styles.

You become a great writer by writing.

If I did anything 'next', I would do writing.