Terry Pratchett Quotes

Any writer who has difficulty in writing is probably not onto his true subject, but wasting time with false, petty goals; as soon as you connect with your true subject you will write.

For me, there's a bad year of getting started on something. You write bad stuff and it's awkward to throw it out, and you wait around to get some good ideas that maybe do come or don't come. Until eventually you get the voice and autonomy of the characters, the characters have personality, and they sort of pick up the weight and put it on their shoulders. That's when it becomes a little more fun.

I'm doing one of three things: I'm writing. I'm staring out the window. Or I'm writhing on the floor.

The only thing that makes me crazier than writing is not writing.

Philip Larkin didn't write for several years before his life ended. And when he was asked why he didn't write, he said the muse deserted him. And when I read that, it really had a profound effect upon me, sort of scared me. So that's why I think I have no right to assume that some thought is going to come... But I think, in my imagination, if it is it, there will probably be something else I'm interested in.

When I write I just keep a waste paper basket handy in case I am experiencing a block.

Usually if a scene's really hard to write, I just don't write it. Nothing's coming to mind.

That famous writer’s block is a myth as far as I’m concerned. I think bad writers must have a great difficulty writing. They don’t want to do it. They have become writers out of reasons of ambition. It must be a great strain to them to make marks on a page when they really have nothing much to say, and don’t enjoy doing it. I’m not so sure what I have to say but I certainly enjoy making sentences.

But sometimes when I was starting a new story and I could not get it going, I would sit in front of the fire and squeeze the peel of the little oranges into the edge of the flame and watch the sputter of blue that they made. I would stand and look out over the roofs of Paris and think, 'Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.' So finally I would write one true sentence, and then go on from there.

I don't think that writer's block exists really. I think that when you're trying to do something prematurely, it just won't come. Certain subjects just need time, as I've learned over and over again. You've got to wait before you write about them.

There are many things I think about that never get to the point of becoming serious. In other words, I try to talk myself out of writing, sometimes for many years, and when I run out of arguments, I write.

I tell my students there is such a thing as 'writer's block,' and they should respect it. You shouldn't write through it. It's blocked because it ought to be blocked, because you haven't got it right now.

I had to educate him that there was no such thing as writer's block, that writers write when they write, and when they don't, they don't.

I've often said that there's no such thing as writer's block; the problem is idea block.

I'm constantly battling writer's block; it usually takes me two hours to write anything.

I had writer's block for almost a year.

I never get writer's block, but I do have days where I crawl under the duvet.

Maybe I can't write without painting myself into a corner first.

I feel like I spend most of my time in a state of writer's block! When things do come out, they come out quickly.

Writer's block? I've never heard of a plumber complain about plumber's block.

Writing is not hard. Just get paper and pencil, sit down, and write as it occurs to you. The writing is easy-it's the occurring that's hard.

I think the only way you can get something out is to invest some real emotion into it, which means you're already writing about what's going to happen to you, whether you know it or not. That's why I'm always surprised when people talk about writer's block. Because to me, it can't be stopped.

Writer's block is a myth. I never see the gardeners suffering from gardening block.

You can fix anything but a blank page.

I've found in my own life that if my writing isn't going well, not much else will. It is the one constant, the key to everything else.