The business of the poet and novelist is to show the sorriness underlying the grandest things, and the grandeur underlying the sorriest things.
May 2, 2012
Quote of the Day: Thomas Hardy
April 25, 2012
Quote of the Day: EL Doctorow
Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.
March 12, 2012
Quote of the Day: George-Louis Leclerc
Writing well is at one and the same time good thinking, good feeling and good expression; it is having wit, soul and taste, all together.
March 8, 2012
Quote of the Day: Julie Burchill
Writing is more than anything a compulsion, like some people wash their hands thirty times a day for fear of awful consequences if they do not. It pays a whole lot better than this type of compulsion, but it is no more heroic.
March 1, 2012
Quote of the Day: Iris Murdoch
Writing is like getting married. One should never commit oneself until one is amazed at one’s luck.
February 21, 2012
Quote of the Day: Martin Amis
This (writing) is the love of your life. It’s what I want to do when I wake up. Nothing feels so absorbing, so fulfilling.
February 1, 2012
Quote of the Day: William Saroyan
Writing is the hardest way of earning a living, with the possible exception of wrestling alligators.
January 31, 2012
Quote of the Day: Monica Ali
Writing is a deeply immersive experience. When the words are flying, the house could be burgled and I wouldn’t notice. I have a low boredom threshold and I like intensity – writing is a way of escaping the quotidian.
January 19, 2012
Quote of the Day: Winston Churchill
Substitute the word “script” for the word “book.”
Writing a book is an adventure. To begin with, it is a toy and an amusement. Then it becomes a mistress, then it becomes a master, then it becomes a tyrant. The last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster, and fling him to the public.
December 7, 2011
Quote of the Day: Margaret Atwood
Writing is not a job description. A great deal of it is luck. Don’t do it if you are not a gambler because a lot of people devote many years of their life to it. I think people become writers because they are compulsive wordsmiths.
