Literature and Words

Publishing is a very mysterious business. It is hard to predict what kind of sale or reception a book will have, and advertising seems to do very little good.

It is not wise to solicit the opinions of publishers—they become proud if you do.

Writers who get written about become self-conscious. They develop a regrettable habit of looking at themselves through the eyes of other people. They are no longer alone, they have an investment in critical praise, and they think they must protect it. This leads to a diffusion of effort. The writer watches himself as he works. He grows more subtle and he pays for it by loss of organic dash.

It’s much more important to write than to be written about.

A boy has to peddle his book.

It is dangerous to let the public behind the scenes. They are easily disillusioned and then they are angry with you, for it was the illusion they loved; they do not understand that what interests you is the way in which you have created the illusion. Anthony Trollope ceased to be read for thirty years because he confessed that he wrote at regular hours and took care to get the best price he could for his work.

I am convinced as a member of the reading public that bad [author] photographs are bad business. I have been put off reading books, which otherwise looked rather attractive, by the puss of the author printed on the back of the dust cover.

You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write.

Don’t ever write a novel unless it hurts like a hot turd coming out.

Prose is like hair; it shines with combing.

I might write four lines or I might write twenty. I subtract and I add until I really hit something I want to do. You don’t always whittle down, sometimes you whittle up.

In the writing process, the more a thing cooks, the better.

Revision is just as important as any other part of writing and must be done con amore .

You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.

You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait, be quite still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.

If, in the first chapter, you say there is a gun hanging on the wall, you should make quite sure that it is going to be used further on in the story.

Write freely and as rapidly as possible and throw the whole thing on paper. Never correct or rewrite until the whole thing is down. Rewrite in process is usually found to be an excuse for not going on.

There is no Sixth Commandment in art. The poet is entitled to lay his hands on whatever material he finds necessary for his work.

Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal.

Great literature must spring from an upheaval in the author’s soul. If that upheaval is not present, then it must come from the works of any other author which happen to be handy and easily adapted.

If you steal from one author it’s plagiarism. If you steal from many, it’s research.

When a thing has been said and well said, have no scruple; take it and copy it. Give references? Why should you? Either your readers know where you have taken the passage and the precaution is needless, or they do not know and you humiliate them.

Steal! And egad, serve your best thoughts as gypsies do stolen children, disfigure them and make ’em pass for their own.

The terror of the white page in the typewriter.