Now we know why some writers drink!

Blog

Now we know why some writers drink!

December 23, 2023December 23, 2023 284

There is a stereotype out there about writers. They’re talented and frustrated and hit the bottle way too often. Maybe the reason some talented writers are frustrated and drink to excess is because of what they’re asked to write. Example:

I don’t care if a reader hates one of my stories, just as long as he finishes the book.

Roald Dahl

It always comes down to characters, and individual stories about courage.

Steven Bochco

If you start with a bang, you won’t end with a whimper.

T.S. Eliot

It is perfectly okay to write garbage — as long as you edit brilliantly.

C. J. Cherryh

The first chapter sells the book; the last chapter sells the next book.

Mickey Spillane

What I loved most about calling myself a reporter was that it gave me an excuse to show up anyplace.

Jeanette Walls

In Hollywood, the woods are full of people that learned to write but evidently can’t read. If they could read their stuff, they’d stop writing.

Will Rogers

Critics are people who sit on the mountaintop and look down on the battlefield. When the fighting is finished, they take it upon themselves to come down from the mountain and shoot the survivors.

Robert Altman

Editor: A person employed by a newspaper, whose business it is to separate the wheat from the chaff, and to see that the chaff is printed.

Elbert Hubbard

Work on a computer that is disconnected from the Internet.

Zadie Smith

There are three primal urges in human beings: Food, sex, and rewriting someone else’s play.

Romulus Linney

If you have an idea that you genuinely think is good, don’t let some idiot talk you out of it.

Stan Lee

A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.

G.K. Chesterton

If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all.

Oscar Wilde

Ever heard of a carpenter not going to work because he has “carpenter’s block”? If a writer can’t write, it’s because he doesn’t really want to, he isn’t ready to get it on paper or he’s just plain lazy.

Chet Cunningham

No writer has ever yet been known to hang himself as long as he had another chapter left.

Thomas Wolfe

Do not place a photograph of your favorite author on your desk, especially if the author is one of the famous ones who committed suicide.

Roddy Doyle

It begins with a character, usually, and once he stands up on his feet and begins to move, all I can do is trot along behind him with a paper and pencil, trying to keep up long enough to put down what he says and does.

William Faulkner

I get up in the morning, torture a typewriter until it screams, then stop.

Clarence Budington Kelland

Stories are never too long or too short. They’re too interesting or too boring.