Samantha Harvey Quotes

The nice thing about being a writer is that you can make magic happen without learning tricks.

Writing is more about imagination than anything else. I fell in love with words. I fell in love with storytelling.

I write poetry anyway and have for years and years. For me, putting fiction and poetry together is like the best of both worlds.

I like that original romance of having a pen and a legal pad and going anywhere in the world and being able to write a novel with just those two things.

I love writing different things.

I spend a lot of time writing. I get inspiration from texts rather than images.

I'm totally in control of this tiny, tiny world right there at the typewriter.

When I'm writing a novel, I'm dealing with a double life. I live in the present at the same time that I live in the past with my characters. It is this that makes a novelist so eccentric and unpleasant.

word thrower … phrase maker

The most amazing gift about being a novelist is that you get to pursue your curiosity every day.

I remember the absolute joy I used to get out of writing. The purity of imagining something and then putting it down on paper - it was such a pleasure. I read whatever I could get my hands on, from 'Great Expectations' to 'The Thorn Birds.'

I've always been entranced by writing.

When people ask me for secrets to writing, I say, 'Read to write.'

What I found so captivating about the idea of being a writer was having the ability to write down all these things I made up in my head so other people could see them.

I work a lot on words, so if I hear a word or see a word or a phrase or a sentence that someone says to me it just immediately sparks a concept.

To some degree, I consider myself a writer, and so I have a strong relationship with literature.

The power with which you can create a character is tremendous and probably more satisfying than actually being the person.

Art, whatever form it takes, requires hard work, craftsmanship and creativity. As a writer, I know my grammar, cadence, the music of prose, and the art of the narrative.

Read a lot. Write a lot. Have fun.

For me, inspiration isn't a sort of spark which lights the fire of the story. It's more like a thread, one of many, which you can tease out of a story once it's written, if you feel so inclined.

I think that, for physicians who want to become writers, they have the material, the smarts, they have the logic, they know the stories; it's just a matter of being able to connect with their emotional sides - that's the key to writing good fiction.

Blank paper has always inspired me.

I enjoy it too much - even if I knew I'd never get a book published, I would still write. I enjoy the experience of getting thoughts and ideas and plots and characters organised into this narrative framework.

All fiction becomes autobiographical when the author has true talent.

I throw everything I have into whatever story I'm writing - and so there's something immensely gratifying about finishing one piece and then starting fresh with a new setting, time period and cast of characters, getting to see the world through a completely different lens each time.