Sue Grafton Quotes

I quit law in 1988 to start writing, and it took me 17 years from that point to get a book contract. I guess you can say I was on the slow train.

Only a person with a Best Seller mind can write Best Sellers.

I couldn't have opened a store without putting books with the clothes. I am still writing as I have always done, and have published my ninth book "L'envers à l'endroit" last year. I am currently working on a dictionary of my favourite words.

If you want to be a writer, you write. Everybody wants to get published. You gotta play your long game.

I have been rejected 120 times, probably because I didn't write the right book.

The only time I was ever approached to write a book was when I was most famous.

I'm so busy writing and editing two books a year that I don't have time for painting anymore.

I have written about 240 books and some short stories, too. It's taken me many years.

Beginning writers must appreciate the prerequisites if they hope to become writers. You pay your dues - which takes years.

If you want to be a writer, I have two pieces of advice. One is to be a reader. I think that's one of the most important parts of learning to write. The other piece of advice is 'Just do it!' Don't think about it, don't agonize, sit down and write.

Books are great for if you want to work on the craft of writing for yourself, or, you know, to write novels or indie films, stuff like that.

Every time you finish something ... you figure you've finally learned to write, right? Then you start something else and it turns out you haven't. You have learned how to write that story, or that book, but you haven't learned how to write the next one.

The truth is I tried to write for years and I wasn't very good.

I began to write when I was seven, and I have been writing off and on ever since. It is still off and on. You can say that when I am on, when I know I have a book which I am going to write, then I write two thousand words a day. That's so many pages longhand.

You know what I did after I wrote my first novel? I shut up and wrote twenty-three more.

So perhaps the best thing to do is to stop writing Introductions and get on with the book.

Most writers want to share their essay or book much too quickly. Those who accept the pain of hard work and revising are those who get published.

Writing a book is like an unknown abyss, every time. Every book is different. Contrary to what unpublished writers think, it's horrible to have a book out.

When you get the ideas, that's a thrill; when you're writing the book and it's corning out well, that's a thrill; when you finish it and other people read it, that's a thrill. There are going to be reviews, of course; not everyone's going to love it. You feel sort of naked and vulnerable in a way. That's just a minor part of the process, really. If you can't take that part, you shouldn't be in the business. But there are so many joys to writing.

Maybe it goes without saying that if you want to become a famous writer before you’re dead, you’ll have to write something. But the folks in my classes with the biggest ideas and the best publicity shots ready to grace the back covers of their best-selling novels are also usually the ones who aren’t holding any paper.

If you are to become a writer you'll have to stop fooling with words.

Books are an attempt to control something that's uncontrollable.

I write books and either people read them or they don't read them. The rise of Facebook or e-books doesn't change the difficulty level of writing sentences and thinking up new ideas.

You need three things to become a successful novelist: talent, luck and discipline. Discipline is the one element of those three things that you can control, and so that is the one that you have to focus on controlling, and you just have to hope and trust in the other two.

I knew nothing about the technique of story writing, and now, after eighteen years of writing, I still know nothing about the technique, although with the publication of my new novel, Tarzan and the Lost Empire, there are 31 books on my list.