Neil Gaiman Quotes

One of the easiest things in the world is not to write... If it were easy, everyone would do it.

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

The main thing about writing is... writing. Sitting your butt down in the chair and doing the work.

I'm always looking at ways of shaking up the writing experience because I think it helps.

If you wish to be a writer, write.

I know that to write you have to have stories you want to tell. You have to keep your mind alive, and you have to work hard.

I write constantly about everything.

If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There's no way around these two things that I'm aware of, no shortcut.

I am always trying to write.

A writer writes. If you want to be a writer, write.

The secret to being a writer is that you have to write. It's not enough to think about writing or to study literature or plan a future life as an author. You really have to lock yourself away, alone, and get to work.

I often meet frustrated young writers who say they've only got so far and just can't finish a book. Even if you don't happen to use what you've worked on that day, it has taught you something and you'll be amazed when you might come back to it and use it again.

I worked with several writers at the University of Michigan: Nicholas Delbanco, Peter Ho Davies, Eileen Pollack, Laura Kasischke, and Thomas Lynch, who told me the same thing over and over again: Persist. Read, write, and improve: tell your stories.

The only way to learn writing is by writing. Talent, as charming as it sounds, amounts to no more than 12 per cent of the process. Work is 80 per cent. The remaining 8 per cent is 'luck' or 'zeitgeist' - in short, things that are not in our hands.

I spend 99 percent of my time writing.

I would say, number one, don't worry about getting published. Just write. Number two, just write. Three is make sure you read.

The only difference between a writer and someone who wants to be a writer is discipline.

Writing is just work-there's no secret. If you dictate or use a pen or type or write with your toes-it's still just work.

I've learned never to try and force words to come.

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

I'm a writer who likes to be influenced.

For any writers at all, read everything you can and then put your butt in the chair and write. That's all there is to it.

I started writing when I was about 20, 21 maybe.

Writing is work. It takes a lot of contemplation, concentration, and out-and-out sweat. People tend to romanticize it, that somehow your work appears by benefit of some mystical external force. In reality, to be a writer, you have to sit down and write. It's work, and often it's hard work.

I find writing really difficult - definitely the most difficult of all the things I do.