Writer's Freedom Quotes

It's a wonderful thing, as a writer, to be given parameters and walls and barriers.

Black writers, of whatever quality, who step outside the pale of what black writers are supposed to write about, or who black writers are supposed to be, are condemned to silences in black literary circles that are as total and as destructive as any imposed by racism.

My equality rants have been out there so much that people must be getting sick of it, and frankly, so am I, but if a writer wants to do another story about it, then go for it, because the cause is a good one.

Life is a very orderly thing, but in fiction there is a huge liberation and freedom. I can do what I like. There's nothing that says I can't write a page of full stops. There is no 'should' involved, although you wouldn't know that from literary reviews and critics.

I think it would be a shame for any writer to let their publishers in any way corral them into a single genre.

One of the great perks of being a writer is that you can work when you're mentally capable of it, not when someone else thinks you should.

To my mind, a journalist needs to espouse objectivity and distance, while a writer practises an art that is more free.

I'm not very popular, because they're bleak and they're mournful and all the rest of it and I get censorious reviews. But I'm only writing fiction. I'm not making munitions, so I think it's acceptable.

One of the awesome things about being a writer is that I can research nearly anything - tea? Bubblegum? Ants? Neurology? Chocolate? Textile production? It doesn't matter. It's all productive work.

I like the idea of standalone novels. I always found with series of books, it's something that publishers love obviously because they can make a lot of money and they build an audience from book to book, but I don't like that as a writer. I prefer the idea of just telling a story, completing it within your book, and moving on and not forcing a child to read eight of them.

For a professional writer in the Soviet Union, it works this way. First, you have to have something to say - that's the main thing. Second, it's a matter of who publishes you. If your book has real stuff in it, readers will ferret it out, even in a Siberian journal.

I, too, am interested in identity and Islam, which is what people expect of us. But one must not write what is expected. It's important for North African writers to show they have other things to say.

In the end, the writer is not even allowed to live in his writing.