Quotes on “writing”

I don't profess any religion; I don't think it’s possible that there is a God; I have the greatest difficulty in understanding what is meant by the words ‘spiritual’ or ‘spirituality.'[Interview, The New Yorker, Dec. 26, 2005]

After nourishment, shelter and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world.

I am a strong believer in the tyranny, the dictatorship, the absolute authority of the writer.

Imagination is like a muscle. I found out that the more I wrote, the bigger it got.

I love being a writer. What I can't stand is the paperwork.

A man, to be greatly good, must imagine intensely and comprehensively; he must put himself in the place of another and many others; the pains and pleasures of his species must become his own. The great instrument of moral good is the imagination.

I don't wait for moods. You accomplish nothing if you do that. Your mind must know it has got to get down to work.

Tears are words that need to be written.

Borges said there are only four stories to tell: a love story between two people, a love story between three people, the struggle for power and the voyage. All of us writers rewrite these same stories ad infinitum.

Poems are never finished - just abandoned

I want to see thirstIn the syllables,Tough fireIn the sound;Feel through the darkFor the scream.

She looked away. Her attitude seemed to suggest that she had finished with him, and would be obliged if somebody would come and sweep him up.

I just sit at my typewriter and curse a bit.

I know I was writing stories when I was five. I don’t remember what I did before that. Just loafed, I suppose.

In old days books were written by men of letters and read by the public. Nowadays books are written by the public and read by nobody.

The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.

Appearance blinds, whereas words reveal.

You know how writers are... they create themselves as they create their work. Or perhaps they create their work in order to create themselves.