Writing

Writers end up writing stories--or rather, stories' shadows--and they're grateful if they can, but it is not enough. Nothing the writer can do is ever enough.
-Joy Williams

I want to live other lives. I've never quite believed that one chance is all I get. Writing is my way of making other chances.
-Anne Tyler

Writing is a performance, like singing an aria or dancing a jig.
-Stephen Greenblatt

All good writing is swimming under water and holding your breath.
-F. Scott Fitzgerald

Good writing is always about things that are important to you, things that are scary to you, things that eat you up.
-John Edgar Wideman

In certain ways writing is a form of prayer.
-Denise Levertov

Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia.
-E.L. Doctorow

Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.
-E.L. Doctorow

Let's face it, writing is hell.
-William Styron

A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.
-Thomas Mann

Writing is 90 percent procrastination: reading magazines, eating cereal out of the box, watching infomercials.
-Paul Rudnick

Writing is a failure. Writing is not only useless, it's spoiled paper.
-Padget Powell

Writing is very hard work and knowing what you're doing the whole time.
-Shelby Foote

I think all writing is a disease. You can't stop it.
-William Carlos Williams

Writing is like getting married. One should never commit oneself until one is amazed at one's luck.
-Iris Murdoch

The less conscious one is of being 'a writer,' the better the writing.
-Pico Iyer

Writing is…that oddest of anomalies: an intimate letter to a stranger.
-Pico Iyer

Writing is a combination of intangible creative fantasy and appallingly hard work.
-Anthony Powell

I think writing is, by definition, an optimistic act.
-Michael Cunningham