Wanting To Be A Writer Quotes & Sayings

I remember wanting to write a book with someone, the someone being Kate [DiCamillo], and we decided to write about two friends. We had no idea how to begin this project - neither of us had ever collaborated with another writer - and I'm pretty sure that we began by giving our two friends a sock, just to see what they'd do with it. And it went from there. — Kate DiCamillo

I've read some of Kurt Vonnegut letters from when he was young. He was a prisoner of war, and even when he was in his early twenties, there were things mentioned that showed up in his novels. One of the sweetest things in those letters was him wanting to be a writer but doubting himself, not having confidence in himself. — Susan Sarandon

I can remember when
delusions of grandeur
entailed wanting to
be a rock star, movie star,
a millionaire; to make it
as a writer
now it seems that it's
to want to earn a
decent living — Phil Volatile

I think distance also helps me gain an certain critical perspective that's essential for good writing. It makes it possible to be more truthful in my writing, to speak some harsh truths. And being an immigrant in America, always having this outsider-rinsider thing going on, is such great training for being a writer. Because that's what writers are - outsiders wanting to get on the inside and insiders longing to burst out. — Thrity Umrigar

But then again, that's what the Book of Job was about to her, a cautionary tale about wanting there to be a God, wanting there to be someone who could enact what a God could enact, or who could sanction what the Devil would do. You want this, people? You want these kinds of powers? No, you don't, and here's why, and here's why it's sheer vanity to want them in any other entity. Look what sort of violence would rain down. Poor Job, sure, poor Job with his hives and his financial losses - though who needs three thousand camels? - and too bad about the kids, forgive me, they were delicious, so sweet and so cold, sure, too bad, but it's God who's the miserable bastard here. Look what he got himself up to! No good could come of that type of power; that's what the writer of the Book of Job was saying, and she knew the writer was right. — Michelle Latiolais

I was so in love with books from as early as I remember that it seemed a natural step to want to create them. And so I just wanted to be a writer from a very young age. And I think that the lies were just a natural side effect of me wanting to tell stories and write them down. — Marie Rutkoski

As a writer, a poet, you're not alone in wanting to be alone. Your work is a friendship that never leaves you. — Jason E. Hodges

And I didn't grow up wanting to be a director. I grew up wanting to be a writer, so for me, that was always the goal - to be a novelist, not a screenwriter. And I think, again, if I didn't have the novels, maybe I'd be much more frustrated by not having directed yet. — David Benioff

I had a very well-respected writer ask me point blank to my face whether it actually mattered to me. Now, without wanting to reach out and just strangle him or send a few F-bombs his way, I just bit my tongue, told him he offended me and walked away. — Jim Furyk

I find myself wanting to make music at the dining room table or in the bedroom - I'm kind of a mobile writer, so I sort of move around the house. But the attic is definitely where I can make the most noise. While everyone on the lower floors screams 'Earthquake!' But no! It's just my bass! — Meshell Ndegeocello

And form this kind of thought has emerged a new conclusion: which is that it is not only childish of a writer to want readers to see what he sees, to understand the shape and aim of a novel as he sees it - his wanting this means that he has not understood a most fundamental point. Which is that the book is alive and potent and fructifying and able to promote thought and discussion only when its plan and shape and intention are not understood, because that moment of seeing the shape and plan and intention is also the moment when there isn't anything more to be got out of it. — Doris Lessing

My transition from wanting to be a cartoonist to wanting to be a writer may have come about through that friendly opposition, that even-handed pairing, of pictures and words. — John Updike

I don't know that I ever wanted greatness on its own. It seems rather like wanting to be an engineer, rather than wanting to design something - or wanting to be a writer, rather than wanting to write. It should be a by-product, not a thing in itself. Otherwise, it's just an ego trip. — Roger Zelazny

A writer starts out, I think, wanting to be a transfiguring agent, and ends up usually just making contact, contact with other human beings. This, unsurprisingly, is not enough. — Joy Williams

Something I've really been wanting to do, ever since 'Six Feet Under' ended, was create my own version of this idealized writer's room as well as the ideal family. — Jill Soloway

There is and always has been for me a peculiar need to write. This is very different from wanting to be a writer. To be a writer always seemed something so far removed from my talents and abilities and imaginings that it didn't afflict me at all as a notion when I was young. But I was always conscious that I wanted to write. — Patricia Wentworth

I did put on the record player, the love symphony of Beethoven wafted in the air. You and I made love,
last February on that amazing Sunday afternoon. And the neighbor's dog barked madly every time our bed creaked from all the gyrations that you and I could outmaneuver in our frenzy of wanting each other's body and soul! — Avijeet Das

Evan Handler is not only a fine actor, he's a damn good writer. It's Only Temporary is wise and funny and as righteously indignant as it is endearingly self-effacing. In what may be a literary first, the book actually left me wanting more. — Meghan Daum

Nobody ever became a writer just by wanting to be one. If you have anything to say, anything you feel nobody has ever said before, you have got to feel it so desperately that you will find some way to say it that nobody has ever found before, so that the thing you have to say and the way of saying it blend as one matter - as indissolubly as if they were conceived together ... . - The Crack-Up — F Scott Fitzgerald

Steve Forman is a brutally funny writer. His no-nonsense, unadorned style begs comparison to Dashiell Hammett, but Hammett's humor at its darkest never hit home this hard. Reading of Eddie Perlmutter's exploits is like rolling in an aisle paved with broken glass and wanting to do it all over again two minutes later. — Loren D. Estleman

I think living in Israel and wanting to change reality is the best prescription for never-ending writer's block. — Etgar Keret

My interest in community is what fuels my work as a writer, more than just wanting to write or just wanting to have a TV show. — Jill Soloway

I loved movies, but I can't remember ever really wanting to be an actress, and I certainly didn't imagine ever being in a movie. I think I wanted to be a writer. — Winona Ryder

It was the yearning she related to. Shriver seemed to understand the specific human pain of wanting and pushing away at the same time. It left her with a gorgeous ache, and when she turned the last page of the book and closed the cover, Norah's connection to the writer felt absolute. It was a breathless, consuming rapture.... — Ellen Meister

I needed to do a lot of saying no. I had a lot of [interest] from people who I just didn't think were quite right for it. And I didn't want a bad film to be made of the book, either a sentimental one or a creepy one, so I did a lot of, "No thank you." Then when the right filmmaker came along, yes, I suppose I presented myself very much as wanting to be the writer. — Emma Donoghue

I grew up wanting to be a writer for theatre. — Christopher Durang

Your moustache," I continue. "It's kind of like me wanting to be a writer. It's part of me. I don't know who I'd be if I didn't want to be a writer. — Candace Bushnell

With ferocity and extraordinary craft, Lizzie Harris has made a book of poems that resonates far beyond the personal stories it tells. Stop Wanting reveals, in every lyric, its author's profound metaphorical gifts. In its ironies and intensities, it brings to mind a writer like the young Sylvia Plath, though what is startling about Harris' s work is the way it combines those gifts with a muted, deft self-awareness. Most of all, these are wonderfully shaped, powerful, and surprising poems-a startling debut. — Meghan O'Rourke

Writer's block comes from one's wanting only to write good stuff. Well, the good stuff and the bad stuff are all part of the stuff. No good stuff without bad stuff. — Eric Olsen

Writing was the soul of everything else ... Wanting to be a writer was wanting to be a person. — Patricia Hampl

People would ask if I wanted to host things and I was like, "No, I'm a writer, I don't host things." Just thinking I wouldn't be good at it - which is true - but also just wanting to hold on to some part of my identity. — Joel Stein

Slater used to be a poet, he's nothing now, and he sort of looks on Robby and me with awe because we aren't nothing yet, we haven't given up yet, awed at me because I'm thirty-one and haven't given up yet, and at Robby because he's young and has potential.
Most people stop wanting to be a writer around the age of sixteen. — Rick Bass

I don't think my writing has much to do with my age. For me, my biography is more about what I was reading at what age. It's more of an intellectual thing of wanting to be free to write and think without being too bound by categorisation. I don't think I'm made for these times; I feel more like an old-fashioned writer. — Helen Oyeyemi

I always call 'Billy Elliot' a fantasy autobiography because I never wanted to be a dancer, but I got a lot of stick from the other kids about wanting to be a writer and being interested in drama. — Lee Hall

I was kind of an outsider growing up, and I preferred reading to being with other kids. When I was about seven, I started to write my own books. I never thought of myself as wanting to be a writer - I just was one. — Ann Hood

READ. You have no business wanting to be a writer unless you are a reader. You should read fantasies and essays, biographies and poetry, fables and fairy tales. Read, read, read, read, read. — Kate DiCamillo