Writers on Writing

Wendell Berry
"The first obligation of a writer is to tell the truth--or to come as near to telling it as is humanly possible. To do that, it is necessary to learn to write well. And to learn to write well, it is necessary to learn to read well." (From here.)


Victor Hugo
"A writer is a world trapped in a person."

Annie Dillard
“One of the things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now. Something more will arise for later, something better. These things fill from behind, from beneath, like well water. Similarly, the impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes." (From The Writing Life)


Fannie Hurst
“Writing is a chore. It cracks your bones and eats you, and yet it dominates you. You hate it while you love it.”


Saul Bellow
“You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write.”

C. S. Lewis
“Write about what really interests you, whether it is real things or imaginary things, and nothing else. (Notice this means that if you are interested only in writing you will never be a writer, because you will have nothing to write about . . .)”

INDEX of Topics at this Blog; Annie Dillard Describes Her Writing Life; Reflections on the Writing Life: INDEX of Topics