E. L. Doctorow Quotes

The newspaper is, in fact, very bad for one's prose style. That's why I gravitated towards feature stories where you get a little more leeway in the writing style.

I want to be a better writer. I want to learn and grow, to know how to tell stories in a different and more challenging way. I've learned it doesn't get easier each time. It actually gets harder.

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.

I would recommend the short story form, which is a lot harder to write since you have to be so careful with words, until there is plenty of time to doodle through a novel.

Writing's still the most difficult job I've ever had - but it's worth it.

Writing is really hard, and it's really a skill.

I love writing journalism because it's all over in two hours and comes straight off the top of the head. Writing novels is soooooo much harder. It's the hardest thing I've ever done.

Making sentences is what I do. I mean, the story will come as I write.

There's nothing easy about writing. It's always difficult. It's always a struggle.

I first started writing fiction in college because I was attracted to beautiful sentences. I loved to read them. I wanted to write them.

I'm happy to be a writer - of prose, poetry, every kind of writing. Every person in the world who isn't a recluse, hermit or mute uses words. I know of no other art form that we always use.

I am a very linear thinker, so I write beginning to end. I write hundreds of pages per book that never make it into print.

Outlining is not writing. Coming up with ideas is not writing. Researching is not writing. Creating characters is not writing. Only writing is writing.

Writing is a struggle no matter what the genre.

The future author is one who discovers that language, the exploration and manipulation of the resources of language, will serve him in winning through to his way.

What's on the page dictates a lot of what I do. When the words are there, it's easy.

I have always found writing very difficult.

To make anything successful, you need a good writer.

If people want to be better writers, they can't just read the blogs! You've got to look at something that's outside this rushing world of evanescent words.

I do not think of literature as something confessional or therapeutic. I make sentences in order to be precise about experiences and things. I am urged by many things and no things in particular.

Read and write with a sensitive ear. The craft of writing is very important. Practice the craft.

To write you have to be able to know how to put words together.

The great pleasure for me in writing short stories is the fierce, elegant challenge.

You become a great writer by writing.

I write. This is what I do. My job is to sit down with my vocabulary, select words, and decide what order they should be placed in an attempt to keep someone's attention and perhaps provide them with a laugh or two along the way.