Writer Quotes

However exquisitely human nature may have been described by writers, the true practical system can be learned only in the world.

Ernest Hemingway has been the most important influence on me as a writer. But at a certain point as a writer,

The writing of the script is a continual process. There’s the first draft and then many, many re-writes here and there.

The reality of a serious writer is a reality of many voices, some of them belonging to the writer, some of them belonging to the world of readers at large.

We will need writers who can remember freedom. Poets, visionaries-the realists of a larger reality.

There was no escape from the letter-writer who, a hundred or a hundred and twenty-five years ago, captured a coveted correspondent. It would have been as easy to shake off an octopus or a boa-constrictor.

That is much of what I think the writer’s job is – to slow people down.

I mean, the problem is, I think I’m a great writer.

I think the writer’s quite low down in the hierarchy really. But the fact that they took the piss out of Nicholas [Hynter] who, besides being the director, is also director of the National Theatre is, I’d have thought, slightly more risky.

Let the writer take up surgery or bricklaying if he is interested in technique. There is no mechanical way to get the writing done, no shortcut.