Quotes of the Week

Style is knowing who you are, what you want to say, and not giving a damn.

—Orson Welles

I shall live badly if I do not write, and I shall write badly if I do not live.

—Françoise Sagan

It's true that writing is a solitary occupation, but you would be surprised at how much companionship a group of imaginary #characters can offer once you get to know them.

—Anne Tyler

One of the really bad things you can do to your writing is to dress up the vocabulary, looking for long words because you’re maybe a little bit ashamed of your short ones.

—Stephen King

The process of writing is a process of inner expansion and reduction. It’s like an accordion: You open it and then you bring it back, hoping that additional sound—a new clarity—may come out. It’s all for clarity.

—Jerzy Kosinsk

Novel writing, I soon discovered, is like channel swimming: a slow and steady stroke over a long distance in a cold, dark sea.

—Ann Patchett 

Don't loaf and invite inspiration; light out after it with a club, and if you don't get it you will nonetheless get something that looks remarkably like it.

—Jack London

The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in shock-proof shit-detector—the writer's radar...all great writers have had it.

—Ernest Hemingway

Writers have a rare power not given to anyone else: we can bore people long after we are dead.

—Sinclair Lewis