Writing career Quotes

“I would advise anyone who aspires to a writing career that before developing his talent he would be wise to develop a thick ”

“Faulkner had an egg carton filled with periods and throughout his writing career, used nearly all of them.”

“If we are interested in a writing life - as opposed to a writing career - then we are in it for the process and not the product - for the body of work and not for the quick hit of one well-realised piece.”

“I like my writing career and it's progression, I'd rather be that slow moving tide that turns a mountain into a beautiful beach for all to enjoy, rather than a flash in a pan that yields no heat.”

“I think I succeeded as a writer because I did not come out of an English department. I used to write in the chemistry department. And I wrote some good stuff. If I had been in the English department, the prof would have looked at my short stories, congratulated me on my talent, and then showed me how Joyce or Hemingway handled the same elements of the short story. The prof would have placed me in competition with the greatest writers of all time, and that would have ended my writing career.”

“It’s like people immediately imagine me sitting in some gothic, sweeping castle in Edinburgh, a piece of fine bone china full of English tea next to my neat writing station. They think that my car, my purse, my everything was financed by my lucrative but somehow not too time consuming writing career. I’ve even had one guy ask me if my hand cramps at signings. While I wanted to give a snarky, “Yes, just like Tom Brady’s does,” I can’t pull off snarky. My sarcasm immediately goes into b**ch territory”

“If any writer in this country has collected as fine and passionate a group of readers as I have, they’re fortunate and lucky beyond anyone’s imagination. It remains a shock to me that I’ve had a successful writing career. Not someone like me; Lord, there were too many forces working against me, too many dark currents pushing against me, but it somehow worked. Though I wish I’d written a lot more, been bolder with my talent, more forgiving of my weaknesses, I’ve managed to draw a magic audience into my circle. They come to my signings to tell me stories, their stories. The ones that have hurt them and made their nights long and their lives harder.”

“If one can, anyone can.If two can, you can, too!”