Sheila Heti Quotes

I knew I was a writer; I wanted to be a writer, but I didn't know what to write.

I never really know the title of a book until it's finished.

Every time that I write a novel I am convinced for at least two years that it is the last one, because a novel is like a child. It takes two years after its birth. You have to take care of it. It starts walking, and then speaking.

Call me the author.

Somebody said writing is easy, you just sit down at your typewriter and open a vein. It depends on the book. Some, I have to do quite a lot of research, which I like. Others are much closer to me.

An author is somebody who writes a story. It doesn't matter if you're a kid or if you're a grown-up, it doesn't matter if the book gets published and lots of people get to read it, or if you make just one copy and you share that book with one friend.

As writers, we can't predict who might come along who might find our offerings valuable.

I had novels to write, so I wrote them.

I don't call myself a writer.

A book comes and says, 'Write me.' My job is to try to serve it to the best of my ability, which is never good enough, but all I can do is listen to it, do what it tells me and collaborate.

It took me ten years to write a proper story. I floundered about trying to shape something, counting on the 'feeling' I had as I wrote, only to discover upon rereading my work that the feeling had disappeared, and what remained was an empty shell.

I'm still not sure I want to be a writer. I think of myself as a storyteller more.

I'm clearly not a writer, but I'm always a fan of them.

Writing a novel isn't like building a brick wall. You don't figure out how to do it, and then it gets easier each time because you know what you're doing. With writing a novel, you have to figure it out each time. Each time you start over, you just have the language and the idea and the hope.

I don't know if I want to be a writer.

I wrote a novel, so now they can call me a novelist. I tell stories; that's it.

I'm still in love with what I do, with the idea of making things up, so hours when I write always feel like very blessed hours to me.

When I'm the one who sits down and looks at the blank page and writes it out all the way, then I'll call it my script.

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.

I am a writer because writing is the thing I do best.

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

I feel like writing a book there's always a version in your head that's an amazing version, but then you write the version that you can write.

Usually after finishing a novel, I have a head full of bad ideas for the next one.

In my younger days, I was trying to write sophisticated prose and fantastic stories.

I'm a writer who likes to be influenced.