writers quote daily

Turow on the job of a writer

"The trial lawyer's job and the novelist's . . . involve the reconstruction of experience, usually through many voices, whether they are witnesses or characters." --Scott Turow

Alcott on the writing life

"Every few weeks she would shut herself up in her room, put on her scribbling suit, and 'fall into a vortex,' as she expressed it, writing at her novel with all her heart and soul, for till that was finished she could find no peace." --Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

Wiesel on why writers write

"Writers write because they cannot allow the characters that inhabit theym to suffocate them." --Elie Wiesel

Crichton on the ideal editor

"In my experience of writing, you generally start out with some overall idea that you can see fairly clearly, as if you were standing on a dock and looking at a ship on the ocean. At first you can see the entire ship, but then as you begin work you're in the boiler room and you can't see the ship anymore. All you can see are the pipes and teh grease and the fittings of the boiler room, and you have to assume the ship's exterior. What you really want in an editor is someone who's still on the dock, who can say, Hi. I'm looking at your ship, and it's missing a bow, the front mast is crooked, and it looks to me as if your propellers are going to have to be fixed." --Michael Crichton, The Paris Review (Fall 1994)

Stunk and White on revising

"Revising is part of writing. Few writers are so expert that they can produce what they are after on the first try. . . Remember, it is no sign of weakness or defeat that your manuscript ends up in need of major surgery. This is a common experience in all writing, and among the best writers." --William Strunk, Jr. and E.B. White, The Elements of Style

Carroll on dialogue

"[A]nd what is the use of a book? thought Alice, "without pictures or conversations?" --Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Sloane on writing a character

The character that is rendered too meticulously often fails to convince. Too little is left for the reader to contribute out of himself. General physical descriptions are usually enough; the reader will supply his own visual image and because it is his own it will be a reality for him. --William Sloane, The Craft of Writing

Tolstoy on theme

A work cannot be a success unless one loves its governing idea. --Leo Tolstoy, qtd. in Henri Troyat's Tolstoy

Nabokov on the writer and the work

[I]n a first-rate work of fiction the real clash is not between the characters but between the author and the world. --Vladimir Nabokov, Speak, Memory

Wouk on narrative force

I realized that for all its sweep of history, the true narrative force of (War and Peace was) is who gets Natasha. --Herman Wouk, Washington Post (May 16, 1995)