Leo Rosten Quotes

I've been to a lot of places and done a lot of things, but writing was always first. It's a kind of pain I can't do without.

I always felt that I was a writer, that was what I had to do.

Writing is like a 'lust,' or like 'scratching when you itch.' Writing comes as a result of a very strong impulse, and when it does come, I, for one, must get it out.

I've been writing full-time since I was 23.

You become a writer because you need to become a writer - nothing else.

My aunt could never understand how writing could be a full-time job. She'd keep asking when I'd get a real job!

I'm a writer; it's not just what I do, but who I am.

I live for the text. It's my job.

I learn a lot from acting, but it's not my natural way. I can't help but write; I do it all the time. It's a condition of being for me.

If I didn't write, I'd be like a duvet cover; I have no other marketable skills. Clearly I'm not meant to do anything else.

The only real reason to write professionally is that you love it enough.

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

I am a compulsive writer.

Who will want to write if writing doesn't pay?

At first, teaching was more or less a straightforward way of making a living and having access to institutional resources while writing - aka libraries. And that was not inconsiderable. But it didn't in any way touch the writing. Maybe it would push the writing aside sometimes, but mostly it was fine.

I wrote all the time, but the idea of doing it professionally seemed like pie in the sky. Who gets paid to write? I grew up in Pittsburgh, so it wasn't really a notion that a lot of people pursue.

Many have an irresistible itch for writing.

We do not write because we want to; we write because we have to.

There is absolutely no point in sitting down to write a book unless you feel that you must write that book, or else go mad, or die.

Philip Pullman and Jacqueline Wilson have both been writing for a long time. In 30 years, will writers of that quality have been able to serve the same sort of apprenticeship? Not unless they can make enough money now to live on.

For me, writing is fun. The day I quit my job and take up writing full time, writing will become just another job. A commercial necessity.

I need all of my songs while I'm writing them, because I need to get the stuff out of my body and out of my brain. I write out of necessity, not because I want to be a pop star.

When a real artist creates something, it has to be a necessity, the only way he can say something.

Sometimes people ask, 'If you'd never had a reader, would you carry on writing?' No.

Telling stories has been a compulsion of mine since I could physically say, 'Once upon a time...' But in high school, I realized I could study creative writing in college and actually pursue it as a viable career.