Quotes about writing
377 quotes from 206 people
The inner spaces that a good story lets us enter are the old apartments of religion.
John Updike1932–2009Introduction to The Best American Short Stories of 1984 (1984)Why did people ask “What is it about?” as if a novel had to be about only one thing.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichieborn 1977Americanah (2013)Avoid this crowd like the plague. And if they quote you, make damn sure they heard you.
Barbara Bush1925–2018Advice about news reporters, to incoming first lady, Hillary Rodham Clinton, on a tour of the White House, as quoted in Newsweek magazine (30 November 1992)His talent was as natural as the pattern that was made by the dust on a butterfly’s wings.
Ernest Hemingway1899–1961A Moveable Feast (1964), Ch. 17, “Scott Fitzgerald”
Thomas Mann1875–1955Death in Venice (1912), Ch. 4, as translated by David Luke- Ernest Hemingway1899–1961On the loss of a suitcase containing work from his first two years as a writer, as quoted in With Hemingway (1984) by Arnold Samuelson
Joyce Carol Oatesborn 1938Joyce Carol Oates interviews herself (2013)
William Makepeace Thackeray1811–1863The History of Henry Esmond (1852), Bk. II, Ch. 1.- JCJames Clavell1921–1994Interview with Don Swaim (1986)
Edith Sitwell1887–1964Describing Virginia Woolf in a letter to Geoffrey Singleton (11 July 1955); John Lehmann and Derek Palmer, eds., Selected Letters (1970)- KKKen Kesey1935–2001Trip of a Lifetime (1999)
George Bernard Shaw1856–1950Answers to Nine Questions (September 1896), answers to nine questions submitted by Clarence Rook, who had interviewed him in 1895
Frank Zappa1940–1993Oui interview (1979)
John Milton1608–1674Apology for Smectymnuus (1642)
Susan Sontag1933–2004“The Risk Taker”, profile/interview by Gary Younge, The Guardian (19 January 2002)