Spousal Support for Writers

The greatest service a wife can render her writer husband is not typing his manuscripts for him, but keeping people away from him. Of course, a husband might do the same, if his wife is the writer.

PATRICIA HIGHSMITH

Talent Is Irrelevant

I see the notion of talent as quite irrelevant. I see instead perseverance, application, industry, assiduity, will, will, will, desire, desire, desire.

GORDON LISH

A Writer Must Be As Objective As A Chemist

To a chemist, nothing on earth is unclean. A writer must be as objective as a chemist; he must abandon the subjective line; he must know that dungheaps play a very respectable part in a landscape, and that evil passions are as inherent in life as good ones.

ANTON CHEKOV

Let Your Agent Do It

My advice on dealing with publishers: Let your agent do it. Agents are more important than publishers. Agents are more important than anyone. Which brings me to my advice on dealing with agents. You can't. They won't speak to you, They’re too important.

P.J. O’ROURKE

Writing Is 90 Percent Procrastination

Writing is 90 percent procrastination: reading magazines, eating cereal out of the box, watching infomercials. It's a matter of doing everything you can to avoid writing, until it is about four in the morning and you reach the point where you have to write.

PAUL RUDNICK

Respect Your Genre

Respect the genre you’re writing in. In an effort to put your own stamp on it, don’t ignore the established conventions of that genre—or you’ll alienate your core audience of loyal buyers.

KATHLEEN KRULL

The Worst Thing A Writer Can Do Is Think

The worst thing a writer can do is to think. The best thing to do is to react, which includes thinking but doesn't let it act as an impediment or a censor. When you read something, you think something—write that down. That's what I'm always trying to do.

ALBERTO ÁLVARO RÍOS

Responding to Criticism Is A Foolish Thing to Do

Responding to criticism is a foolish thing for a writer to do, and an unpleasant one. It is much better to read only the advertisements of your work and note, briefly, your royalty reports. These will tell you how popular you are. How good you are, or are not, is a thing you should know only too well yourself.

BEN HECHT

Don't Think Too Much About the Publishing World

I don't think it's a good idea for writers to think too much about the publishing world. I sense in a good many books, even in books by the best writers, an anxiety about how it will do in the marketplace. You can feel it on the page, a sort of sweat of calculation.

ELIZABETH HARDWICK

Be Careful How You Introduce Your Characters

You must be very careful how you introduce your characters. The star plan is to talk about them before they appear so as to make the audience curious to see them, and sufficiently informed about them to save them the trouble of explaining their circumstance. But as some of the characters must open the play and cannot be prepared in this way, you must either fall back on the Parisian well-made play formula and begin with a conversation between the butler and housemaid or else start the characters with a strongly assertive scene, like Richard III.

GEORGE BERNARD SHAW