Writing Skill Quotes

There was the usual dreaminess, I suppose. Also a shyness that caused me - and others - to notice that I could express myself better by writing than by speaking. This is typical of many writers, I think. What is a drawback in childhood is an asset to a literary life. Not being fluent on one’s feet sends one to the page and a habit is born.

The problem with writing a book in verse is, to be successful, it has to sound like you knocked it off on a rainy Friday afternoon. It has to sound easy. When you can do it, it helps tremendously because it's a thing that forces kids to read on. You have this unconsummated feeling if you stop.

Being an outsider makes you a really good writer.

Novelists have, on the average, about the same IQs as the cosmetic consultants at Bloomingdale’s department store. Our power is patience. We have discovered that writing allows even a stupid person to seem halfway intelligent, if only that person will write the same thought over and over again, improving it just a little bit each time. It is a lot like inflating a blimp with a bicycle pump. Anybody can do it. All it takes is time.

I wasn't a very good writer before college. I don't think I was a very good reader.

It's the technique, I think, of writing a novel that is difficult for a nonfiction writer.

There is no motivation higher than being a good writer.

I still don't know whether I know how to write a sentence.

Also, they don't understand - writing is language. The use of language. The language to create image, the language to create drama. It requires a skill of learning how to use language.

Your ability to name every single variation of Kryptonite and every first issue in which it appears is a great pop quiz skill, but is not a great writing skill, all right? So just because you can do that doesn't mean you know how to write.

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.

Nothing improves your writing, I think, as much as your keeping writing.

I didn't have any particular talent for fiction. I took a class in college.

By writing quickly we are not brought to write well, but by writing well we are brought to write quickly.

I wish I could write music notation. Even if I couldn't play it, I wish I could just write it.

Deep feeling doesn't make for good poetry. A way with language would be a bit of help.

I've summarized dozens of books in my literary career; it's become rather second nature.

Ready writing makes not good writing, but good writing brings on ready writing.

Anthony Powell taught me to write; he has such brilliant control of the mechanics of the novel.

Intelligence alone can't make a good writer and style alone can't make a good writer - that is, not a really important or significant writer - but the two things together make a really good writer.

Although there is no substitute for merit in writing, clarity comes closest to being one.

In [writing] fiction, every sentence is its own reward.

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.

I'd say that about 82 percent of what I write is bad, but don't go by me; I'm as bad a judge as I am a writer. Look, if it were all good, you'd be paying twice as much for this book.

I can draw and write, and you'd be foolish not to hire me.