John Steinbeck Quotes

Better to write twaddle, anything, than nothing at all.

What do I do when writing isn't going well? Well, I don't write - which is symptom, cure, and cause. And then sometimes I just tell myself, as I'm writing, "I'll fix it later." And sometimes it's true, I do.

If you feel the urge to write, just lie down and read a book: it will pass.

They say it is the first step that costs the effort. I do not find it so. I am sure I could write unlimited 'first chapters'. I have indeed written many.

I don't even subscribe to writer's block being a truthful thing. I've had writer's laziness quite often. But I think it's all about sitting down and facing down the blank page and doing it, and I've always been ok at that.

I do not believe in inspiration, but I must have a title in order to work, otherwise I am lost.

I'm a 24-hour tweet machine, I'm a 24-hour blogger. When there's no pressure on me, I can talk and write and lecture with the best of them. But put a deadline on me and I start getting writer's block.

There is no such thing as a long piece of work, except one that you dare not start.

When I sit at that typewriter, I have to be frightened of what I'm trying to do. I'm frightened by my own belief that I can actually get a story down on paper.

A writer who isn't writing is asking for trouble.

I don't really love writing. I don't love the feeling of starting a new file. But I love the feeling of overcoming and accomplishing.

Every time I start a new piece of work, I spend a long while under the duvet thinking I can't do it.

All I know is that I have way more stuff that I want to write about than I possibly have time to.

I, for one, find writing excruciating. Some mornings, as I'm on my way to my desk, my hands actually tremble with fear. The fear, of course, is that I'll sit down at the desk and discover that what I've written is claptrap. Fear inevitably leads to procrastination.

I've lost track of the number of people who want to be writers but never actually write anything. Talking about writing, dreaming about writing, can be very fun, but it won't get a book written. You've got to write.

Lack of confidence - every time I start a new piece of work, it seems I have to spend a long while under the duvet thinking I can't do it.

I used to think that: whenever I heard that someone had taken 10 years to write a novel, I'd think it must be a big, serious book. Now I think, 'No - it took you one year to write, and nine years to sit around eating Kit Kats.'

Ever since I was twelve, I dreamed of being an author. I just never had the fortitude to see any of my stories through to completion. I would start a book, get a few chapters in, and grow bored or get distracted by something else.

The hardest part is making the time to write. Not finding the time to write, mind you. Making.

There is something unwholesome and destructive about the entire writing process.

'Purple Plumeria' I dithered over for months and then wrote the whole thing between the beginning of July and end of August. The dithering and procrastination time was three times the writing times.

Obstruction can be caused by so many factors - perfectionism, distraction, faltering confidence, external demands and pressures. At some point, of course, you've got to push through it all if you're to write, and if you don't, or can't, you're sunk.

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

If somebody says that they want to write a book but do not know what to write about, they will never write a book.

I'm not really worried about writer's block.