Quotes by category:Writing

I can't play bridge. I don't play tennis. All those things that people learn, and I admire, there hasn't seemed time for. But what there is time for is looking out the window.

bridges play writing

Usually, I have a lot of acquaintance with the story before I start writing it. When I didn't have regular time to give to writing, stories would just be working in my head for so long that when I started to write I was deep into them. Now, I do that work by filling notebooks.

notebook writing long

There's a kind of tension that if I'm getting a story right I can feel right away, and I don't feel that when I try to write a novel. I kind of want a moment that's explosive, and I want everything gathered into that.

stories writing trying

It's not possible to advise a young writer because every young writer is so different. You might say, "Read," but a writer can read too much and be paralyzed. Or, "Don't read, don't think, just write," and the result could be a mountain of drivel. If you're going to be a writer you'll probably take a lot of wrong turns and then one day just end up writing something you have to write, then getting it better and better just because you want it to be better, and even when you get old and think, "There must be something else people do," you won't be able to quit.

writing people thinking

That's something I think is growing on me as I get older: happy e... by Alice Munro

That's something I think is growing on me as I get older: happy endings.

growing writing thinking

It's certainly true that when I was young, writing seemed to me so important that I would have sacrificed almost anything to it ... Because I thought of the world in which I wrote -- the world I created -- as somehow much more enormously alive than the world I was actually living in.

important writing world

For years and years I thought that stories were just practice, ti... by Alice Munro

For years and years I thought that stories were just practice, till I got time to write a novel.

practice writing years

You want in all cases for the story to get through the writing. by Alice Munro

You want in all cases for the story to get through the writing.

crafts stories writing

If I decided to send this to you, where would I send it? When I think of writing the whole address on the envelope I am paralyzed. It's too painful to think of you in the same place with your life going on in the same way, minus me. And to think of you not there, you somewhere else but I don't know where that is, is worse.

somewhere-else writing thinking

Peoples lives, in Jubilee as elsewhere, were dull, simple, amazing, unfathomable-deep caves paved with kitchen linoleum. . . . What I wanted [to write down] was every last thing, every layer of speech and thought, stroke of light on bark or walls, every smell, pothole, pain, crack, delusion, held still and held together-radiant, everlasting.

wall pain writing

I want my stories to move people ... to feel some kind of reward... by Alice Munro

I want my stories to move people ... to feel some kind of reward from the writing.

writing people moving

The deep, personal material of the latter half of your life is your children. You can write about your parents when they're gone, but your children are still going to be here, and you're going to want them to come and visit you in the nursing home.

home writing children

Naturally my stories are about women - I'm a woman. I don't know what the term is for men who write mostly about men. I'm not always sure what is meant by "feminist." In the beginning I used to say, well, of course I'm a feminist. But if it means that I follow a kind of feminist theory, or know anything about it, then I'm not. I think I'm a feminist as far as thinking that the experience of women is important. That is really the basis of feminism.

writing men mean

Sometimes I get the start of a story from a memory, an anecdote, but that gets lost and is usually unrecognizable in the final story.

anecdotes writing memories

In twenty years I've never had a day when I didn't have to think about someone else's needs. And this means the writing has to be fitted around it.

writing mean thinking

I knew I would be famous one day. That's because I lived in a very small town and nobody liked doing the same things I did, like writing.

one-day would-be writing

Writing poetry is what I am. I wouldn’t know what else to be. by Alice Notley

Writing poetry is what I am. I wouldn’t know what else to be.

writing-poetry poetry-is writing

As soon as you opened your mouth and said the word woman, you were beaten down with the argument that you were betraying the class struggle. There are many poignant writings in which feminists first write pages about their class standpoint before getting to their actual issue. What was then known as class warfare is today called anti-racism. The threat of being accused of racism gave birth to false tolerance.

Alice Schwarzer

issues struggle writing

Well, it's my voice, so it's more accessible that way, and there are also all sorts of things like plot and timelines that are already known entities, so for me, it's very different from writing fiction.

voice different writing

A letter is always better than a phone call. People write things in letters they would never say in person. They permit themselves to write down feelings and observations using emotional syntax far more intimate and powerful than speech will allow.

Alice Steinbach

emotional powerful writing