Literary Craft Quotes

I consider myself kind of a reporter - one who uses words that are more like music and that have a choreography. I never think of myself as a poet; I just get up and write.

If a writer of prose knows enough about what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them. The dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water. A writer who omits things because he does not know them only makes hollow places in his writing.

Poetry, I feel, is a tyrannical discipline. You've got to go so far so fast in such a small space; you've got to burn away all the peripherals.

Who casts to write a living line, must sweat.

I write what I write.

Writing is an act of faith, not a trick of grammar.

If you give me a typewriter and I'm having a good day, I can write a scene that will astonish its readers. That will perhaps make them laugh, perhaps make them cry - that will have some emotional clout to it. It doesn't cost much to do that.

When you write fiction, you have an ideal reader in your mind who's sort of you but smarter.

A novel is a work of poetry. In order to write it, one must have tranquility of spirit and of impression.

Although a novel takes place in the larger world, there's always some drive in it that is entirely personal - even if you don't know it while you're doing it.

If you need proof of how the oral relates to the written, consider that many great novelists, including Joyce and Hemingway, never submitted a piece of work without reading it aloud.

I find it an easy way into writing pieces is to think what the character's voice is like, and start from there.

I really think that reading is just as important as writing when you're trying to be a writer because it's the only apprenticeship we have, it's the only way of learning how to write a story.

Mostly, I would like people to ask other writers about the craft of their writing so we could learn from one another. We ask movie directors why they chose to use certain lights and angles and speeds of film, but most of the time, we ignore the craft of a writer.

A novel, basically, is writing one sentence — then, without violating the scope of the first one, writing the next sentence.

I'm a writer, and the subject is less important than the act of writing itself.

I don't believe chance can play a role in my literature.

Certainly, writing a book was challenging. It took me a long time to learn how to do it. It took me seven years to get a sense of how to wean myself off the process and trickery of songwriting. You realize that giant metaphors work in songs because you have so few words. Standing alone on a page, they threaten to be overblown in a hurry.

When writing, I'm not thinking about war, even if I'm writing about it. I'm thinking about sentences, rhythm and story. So the focus, when I'm working, even if it's on a story that takes place at war, is not on bombs or bullets. It's on the story.

My best times are midnight to six actually. I'll leaf through my notebooks and if something catches my eye and I feel like I want to transfer it from the notebook to the page, I do, and then comes this very strange process which is difficult to describe in that I'll write until I get stuck or I can't go any further or I'm boring myself or whatever and then I might go to another poem.

The poet doesn't invent. He listens.

Every serious novel is, beyond its immediate thematic preoccupations, a discussion of the craft, a conquest of the form, a conflict with its difficulties and a pursuit of its felicities and beauty.

You have to read a lot so you know what good writing looks like and you get inspired. You have to write a lot because it's like a sport - you have to practice. And, also, you have to persevere. Don't give up. I got rejected on my first book, like, 14 times, but I just kept going. So believe in yourself and don't give up.

Writing is something I want to explore. If I were to do it, I would want it to be not a book made by a YouTuber; I would really want to respect that craft of literature and just be an author.

Who wants to become a writer? And why? Because it's the answer to everything. ... It's the streaming reason for living. To note, to pin down, to build up, to create, to be astonished at nothing, to cherish the oddities, to let nothing go down the drain, to make something, to make a great flower out of life, even if it's a cactus.