Mickey Spillane: The older, the better
If you’re a singer you lose your voice. A baseball player loses his arm. A writer gets more knowledge, and if he’s good, the older he gets, the better he …
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Elmore Leonard: Of verbs and adverbs
“Never use an adverb to modify the verb ‘said’ . . . he admonished gravely. To use an adverb this way (or almost any way) is a mortal sin. The …
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Walter Mosley: Write every day
“If you want to be a writer, you have to write every day. The consistency, the monotony, the certainty, all vagaries and passions are covered by this daily reoccurrence. You …
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Gloria Steinem: Writing the only thing
“Writing is the only thing that, when I do it, I don’t feel I should be doing something else.” — Gloria Steinem
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Truman Capote: Inner music of words
“To me, the greatest pleasure of writing is not what it’s about, but the inner music that words make.” – Truman Capote
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William Saroyan: How do you write
How do you write? You write, man, you write, that’s how, and you do it the way the old English walnut tree puts forth leaf and fruit every year by …
Read MoreAlice Hoffman: Love is possible and real
I wrote to find beauty and purpose, to know that love is possible and lasting and real, to see day lilies and swimming pools, loyalty and devotion, even though my …
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Richard Ford: Writing is dark and lonely
Beware of writers who tell you how hard they work. (Beware of anybody who tries to tell you that.) Writing is indeed often dark and lonely, but no one really …
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Geraldine Brooks: Seeking emotional truths
Write what you know. Every guide for the aspiring author advises this. Because I live in a long-settled rural place, I know certain things. I know the feel of a …
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James J. Kilpatrick: Ask how and why
Five common traits of good writers: (1) They have something to say. (2) They read widely and have done so since childhood. (3) They possess what Isaac Asimov calls a …
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