Tom Wolfe Quotes

If you want to be a good writer, be the best writer in the world. That's what I've done.

You can't teach somebody how to be a good writer.

I think writing well takes a little bit of talent and an awful lot of work.

I think you can be taught to write. You can't be taught to be a good writer. For that, you have to bring something to it, yourself, something that can't be given to you.

I think some aspects of writing can be taught. Obviously, you can't teach vision or talent. But you can help with comfort.

I spent several years acquiring the obsessive, day-to-day discipline that's needed if you want to write professionally, then several more, highly valuable years studying fiction writing at the University of Iowa.

Don't romanticise your 'vocation.' You can either write good sentences or you can't. There is no 'writer's lifestyle.' All that matters is what you leave on the page.

There are three things that make a person a writer: inspiration, perspiration and desperation.

I knew I would read all kinds of books and try to get at what it is that makes good writers good. But I made no promises that I would write books a lot of people would like to read.

Good writing of course requires talent, and no one can teach you to have talent.

You cannot teach creativity - how to become a good writer. But you can help a young writer discover within himself what kind of writer he would like to be.

No one can teach writing, but classes may stimulate the urge to write. If you are born a writer, you will inevitably and helplessly write. A born writer has self-knowledge. Read, read, read. And if you are a fiction writer, don't confine yourself to reading fiction. Every writer is first a wide reader.

I'm very happy with the way I write. I think I do it good. But I've never really considered myself a writer.

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

How do we live the writer's life? There's only one simple answer: 'we write.'

If you wish to be a writer, write.

I have grown in my writing and I care about it now and I know how important it is to write stuff.

I think writing is such a great talent, and if I was better, I would love to be a writer.

I'm very interested in writing - it just takes so much discipline, whether it's short stories or novels.

I write - and then I write some more.

The task of a writer consists of being able to make something out of an idea.

If you want to be a writer, just write. There's no magic to it.

I'm inspired by playwrights, novelists, poets: The value of language has been a lifelong passion of mine. I enjoy it. I'm good at it.

I never think that any writer can teach someone how to write.

That's something that is almost accidental at the beginning of a career, but the more you write, the more trained you are to recognize the little signals.