John le Carre Quotes

Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout with some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.

Writing a book isn’t an easy process nor is it always enjoyable, but it is one of life’s most satisfying achievements.

I always wrote - not about war, necessarily, but I always wrote stories. I tried to write while I was in Iraq. It's not really - I didn't do a very good job, and not about war.

Yes, writing a novel, my boy, is like driving pigs to market - you have one of them making a bolt down the wrong lane; another won't get over the right stile.

When you're embarking on a piece of writing, the anxiety is just too much, especially when you're young and you're trying to figure out if this is your thing or not. You feel like, "if I don't write a good story, I gotta get going to law school!"

Writing is a combination of intangible creative fantasy and appallingly hard work.

I had a series of terrible jobs, whatever would allow me to write for four hours during the day. During that time I wrote three novels - all of which were extraordinarily poor. I decided after that to go and get my MFA.

I know I'll keep writing poems. That's the constant. I don't know about novels. They're hard. It takes so much concentrated effort. When I'm writing a novel it's pretty much all I can do. I get bored. It takes months. Movies do the same thing. It's all-encompassing. It feels like I'm going to end up writing poems, short stories and screenplays.

While I do believe I become a technically better writer over time, in others ways writing gets harder because inspiration is finite.

But how do I get to having to write a book?... It was a mother who bore me, not an inkwell!

Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness.

Writing is not an amusing occupation. It is a combination of ditch-digging, mountain-climbing, treadmill and childbirth.

You have to surrender to your mediocrity, and just write. Because it's hard, really hard, to write even a crappy book. But it's better to write a book that kind of sucks rather than no book at all, as you wait around to magically become Faulkner. No one is going to write your book for you and you can't write anybody's book but your own.

It is no fun at all to have been writing a book for seven or so years, especially when you've never published anything before.

I can remember as a college student writing stories and novels, some of which ended up getting published and some that didn't. It was like my head was going to burst - there were so many things I wanted to write all at once. I had so many ideas, jammed up. It was like they just needed permission to come out.

Writing is so hard. Why would you be a writer if you weren't really good at it? If you could be anything else, why would you be a writer?

The search for the word gets no easier but nobody else is going to write your novel for you.

I do write, but for now I am keeping it all in the desk drawer. I have always written. The only book that I have published was "Revolution," during the election campaign, a book that contains both personal and political chapters. I have never been happy with what I have written, including three novels that, from my point of view, are incomplete.

I am sure it has been done with less, but you should be prepared to write and throw away a million words of finished material. By finished, I mean completed, done, ready to submit, and written as well as you know how at the time you wrote it. You may be ashamed of it later, but that's another story.

The profession of the writer has its thorns about which the reader does not dream.

I just finished a novel, and I'm back kind of noodling on the screenplays. Screenplays are tough. I am making music, I'm just not sure what kind of music it is or where it's going.

Writing can be a frightening, distressing business, and whatever kind of structure or buffer is available can help a lot.

The easiest thing to do on earth is not write.

The hardest novel to write was Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant.

Some people play the piano, some do Sudoku, some watch television, some people go out to dinner parties. I write books.