Paul Auster Quotes

I don't know why I write. If I knew the answer, I probably wouldn't have to. But it is a compulsion. You don't choose it, it chooses you. And I wouldn't recommend it to anybody.

Paul Auster

• Writing
• Answers
• Compulsion

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Quotes to Explore

• The story was such that I couldn't make a graceful ending and then make a graceful new beginning. I could have, but I didn't want to. So, it isn't the most graceful way of writing a story. This new story is, I think, is pretty good stuff. I'm pleased with it anyway.

  

  Jack Vance
  • Good
  • Writing
  • Pretty

• The beauty of 'The Hunger Games' and also 'Game of Thrones,' in fairness, both projects have really complex, three-dimensional, contradictory, strong women... The writing of female characters is extraordinary and equal to the men.

  

  Natalie Dormer
  • Men
  • Writing
  • Women

• All autobiography is storytelling; all writing is autobiography.

  

  J. M. Coetzee
  • Writing
  • Storytelling

• I've got plenty of quirks. I go to an office early in the morning. Early in the morning is really good writing time. I take anywhere between six to eight showers a day. I'm not exaggerating. I'm not a germaphobe: it's all about a fresh start.

  

  Aaron Sorkin
  • Time
  • Good
  • Writing

• I've always written songs that were confessional, acoustic, wordy - my writing style matches my personality. The music always has to match the mouth it comes out of.

  

  Camila Cabello Fifth Harmony
  • Music
  • Writing
  • Style

• I love writing journalism because it's all over in two hours and comes straight off the top of the head. Writing novels is soooooo much harder. It's the hardest thing I've ever done.

  

  Rachel Johnson
  • Writing
  • Done
  • Thing

• I've had those people very interested in my writing. Since I think of myself as a composer, I feel really good. I've had lots of guys call me up. I've gotten two or three commissions to write things. I've written lots of movie scores.

  

  Ornette Coleman
  • People
  • Up
  • Good

• Revision is the heart of writing. Every page I do is done over seven or eight times.

  

  Patricia Reilly Giff
  • Writing
  • Heart
  • Done

• There are places where writing is acting and acting is writing. I'm not so interested in the divisions. I'm interested in the way things cross over.

  

  Sam Shepard
  • Writing
  • Way
  • Acting

• I am just doing photo shoots. It's not something that extraordinary. I'm not a great artist, I'm not writing books, I'm not a painter, and people in the streets ask me for a picture or a note, and I say, 'Why?'

  

  Carine Roitfeld
  • People
  • Great
  • Writing

• Honest criticism, I suppose, has its place. But honest writing is infinitely more valuable.

  

  Rachel Cusk
  • Writing
  • Place
  • Criticism

• Hard writing makes easy reading.

  

  Wallace Stegner
  • Writing
  • Reading
  • Easy

• You sit at your computer for hours, then slave away at your job that you may or may not like. You don't know how to explain to them that the time when you feel alive or present is when you are writing.

  

  Karen Bender
  • Time
  • Writing
  • May

• When I was writing 'The Windup Girl' and 'Ship Breaker,' I was writing those simultaneously, so I was an unpublished writer, not really having that full sense that these books would go out in the world, that they would be successful, that there would be an audience and that there would be fans of those stories.

  

  Paolo Bacigalupi
  • World
  • Writing
  • Girl

• My highest point was the first thing I won, a short story competition in a women's magazine in the Eighties. It was the first time I'd had my writing validated, and the first thing I'd ever shown anyone else.

  

  Kate Atkinson
  • Time
  • Writing
  • Women

• I've been writing for a long time. I sat down to write my first novel in the middle of March of 1982.

  

  J. A. Jance
  • Time
  • Long
  • Writing

• Writing about a person whose struggle you wish you could solve is an act of compassion and also, frankly, opportunism.

  

  Karen Bender
  • Writing
  • Wish
  • Struggle

• My job is not to give you all the answers. My job is to ask the questions.

  

  Taylor Sheridan
  • Job
  • Answers
  • Questions

• I like writing songs. I like the camarderie of the and. I like touring. I love playing bass. And then there's free beer.

  

  Keanu Reeves
  • Writing
  • Free
  • I Love

• I can't think of a major story that we have broken that was incorrect. But we have had to correct some things that were false; we have had to retract things.

  

  Mary Hart
  • Broken

• If an artist knows you have respect for their talent - which I have to feel to my core, to sign them - they know that you're in their corner. That doesn't mean you have to be 'mum' on everything; it doesn't mean you can't raise your voice.

  

  Clive Davis
  • Respect

• I know from an editor's point of view or a publisher's point of view it's easier to slot me into a particular niche. But I know that I'd be bored unless I wrote a book that in some senses was a challenge.

  

  Vikram Seth
  • Book
  • Me
  • Challenge

• Women know that we're not just strong. We're not just vulnerable. We are not just attractive or not attractive. We are many things at once, and we're able to see into that complexity.

  

  Elisabeth Moss
  • Women
  • Strong

• I don't know why I write. If I knew the answer, I probably wouldn't have to. But it is a compulsion. You don't choose it, it chooses you. And I wouldn't recommend it to anybody.

  

  Paul Auster
  • Writing
  • Answers
  • Compulsion