Peter S. Beagle Quotes

It was really written as most, I think, books are by writers - for themselves. There was something that just had to be written, in a way that it had to be written. If you know what I mean.

I mean it's the writing, not the being read, that excites me.

I think that like all writers - and if any writer disagrees with this, then he is not a writer - I write primarily for myself.

I love writing. I've pursued it with a passion.

I learn a lot from acting, but it's not my natural way. I can't help but write; I do it all the time. It's a condition of being for me.

I need all of my songs while I'm writing them, because I need to get the stuff out of my body and out of my brain. I write out of necessity, not because I want to be a pop star.

I started writing because I had a need inside of me to create something that was not there

I have never thought of writing for reputation and honor. What I have in my heart must come out; that is the reason why I compose.

The real question is what to live for. And I can't answer it. Except another one of your records. And another chance for me to write. Art for art's sake, corny as that sounds.

People who write for reward by way of recognition or monetary gain don't know what they're doing. They're in the category of those who write; they are not writers. Writing is simply something you must do. It's rather like virtue in that it is its own reward. Writing is selfish and contradictory in its terms. First of all, you're writing for an audience of one, you must please the one person you're writing for. Yourself.

We do not write because we want to; we write because we have to.

You don't write because someone sets assignments! You write because you need to write, or because you hope someone will listen or because writing will mend something broken inside you or bring something back to life.

So okay - there you are in your room with the shade down and the door shut and the plug pulled out of the base of the telephone. You've blown up your TV and committed yourself to a thousand words a day, come hell or high water. Now comes the big question: What are you going to write about? And the equally big answer: Anything you damn well want.

Don't write for money. Write because you love to do something. If you write for money, you won't write anything worth reading.

You do not write a novel for praise, or thinking of your audience. You write for yourself; you work out between you and your pen the things that intrigue you

The whole duty of a writer is to please and satisfy himself, and the true writer always plays to an audience of one.

There are probably seven persons, in all, who really like my work; and they are enough. I should write even if I were the only patient reader, for my aim is merely self-expression.

I love the act of writing. I like the quiet, internal aspect of it. If I lost track of that, I couldn't direct the same way. I couldn't be a director for-hire; it's just not my nature.

That's point of writing: building what you need, right?

All any artist can do is please themselves.

Every single day, I write something new and record it.

I can't remember a time when I wasn't trying to get something down on paper.

I wanted to write.

Writing was my route to creative expression, and I needed to write about the things that interested me.

I don't even know how to define myself. I'm a person who writes. It's something I enjoy, and hopefully people enjoy it as well.