Paul Auster Quotes

What a good novelist does with a throwaway that serves no fictional purpose is throw it away.

There is but one art, to omit! Oh, if I knew how to omit I would ask no other knowledge. A man who knows how to omit would make an Iliad of a daily paper.

I found some time ago that I have to be careful, while working on a novel, what I read.

I think the most important thing when you're telling a story is to just tell the story as best as you possibly can.

Being a playwright is like the equivalent of doing a jigsaw puzzle that has 1,500 pieces, and it's a jigsaw of a blue sky. Not a cloud in sight.

I came up with a story and I wrote it.

I write and write and write, and then I edit it down to the parts that I think are amusing, or that help the storyline, or I'll write a notebook full of ideas of anecdotes or story points, and then I'll try and arrange them in a way that they would tell a semi-cohesive story.

I'm a writer. I just love telling stories.

One has to be very selective about what is essential for driving the story and what isn't. You leave out some things that are lovely, but unfortunately it is necessary.

In composing, as a general rule, run your pen through every other word you have written; you have no idea what vigor it will give your style.

Screenwriting is about condensing.

I'm hoping to get started on a new novel.

A lot of directors understand everything but the story.

One of your jobs as a writer is to cut out the noise. All you have is your instincts and your process.

We're constantly trying to find the best way to tell the stories that we want.

I just read the script; everything else just follows. Content is the most important thing for me.

Knowing what to leave out is just as important as knowing what to focus on.

Great writers know what to cut out. It's the same in life. Clear ambitions. Clear relationships. This is the stuff of good story.

The secret of play-writing can be given in two maxims: stick to the point, and, whenever you can, cut.

My goal is to omit everything superfluous so that the essential is shown to best possible advantage.

But I begin to think the chief difficulty in writing a book must be to keep out what does not belong to it.

The best time to plan a book is while you're doing the dishes.

I want to wake up one morning and know how to write page one, or page 10, or page 250. But I never seem to know how to do it. Every book is different and takes a different structure, style, process, etc. And relearning how to write is where the insanity comes from.

A lot of times you get people writing wonderful sentences and paragraphs, and they fall in love with their prose style, but the stories really aren't that terrific.

The older I get, the more I seek to use a plain prose style, concentrating more on story.