#A. S. Byatt

#A. S. Byatt

“A novel worth reading is an education of the heart. It’s a creator of inwardness.” —Susan Sontag https://t.co/GBs9EYQjHt

“Let the writer take up surgery or bricklaying if he is interested in technique.” —William Faulkner https://t.co/rtQDbAjae6

“Writing is a concentrated form of thinking.” —Don DeLillo https://t.co/uu005I6eBm

“An image—if it’s done right—should embody the exposition of feeling.” —Henri Cole https://t.co/sELNHkp6LA

“If you can condense, what remains is more energetic. It can be more explosive.” —Rae Armantrout https://t.co/qWXH3BV2fv

“I really want stories that are rippers in the old sense. Tales of high danger, high adventure.” —Barry Hannah https://t.co/9e1duX4pdD

“I ain’t that particular. Between scotch and nothing, I’ll take scotch.” —William Faulkner https://t.co/rtQDbAjae6

“I am the kind of writer who rewrites and rewrites. I am very eager to correct everything.”—Kenzaburo Oe
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“I divide the world into people who want to control something and those who want to make something.” —Henri Cole https://t.co/sELNHkp6LA

“A writer needs three things, experience, observation, and imagination.” —William Faulkner https://t.co/rtQDbAjae6

“The novel’s not dead, it’s not even seriously injured.” —Don DeLillo https://t.co/uu005I6eBm

“Nothing gives me as much pleasure, when I’m doing it well, as writing.” —Henri Cole https://t.co/sELNHkp6LA

“I got quite good at Elvish at one point.” —Salman Rushdie https://t.co/xheizFiuyN

“The pen compels lucidity.” —Robert Stone https://t.co/QSh9ivyJsA

“Like a body, with bone and flesh, a poem needs different densities.” —Henri Cole https://t.co/sELNHkp6LA

“We know about the positive, that’s been done to death. But I’ve found plenty of work to be done on the negative.” —Enrique Vila-Matas https://t.co/cLoAzExFXZ

“There is no such thing as was—only is. If was existed, there would be no grief or sorrow.” —William Faulkner https://t.co/rtQDbAjae6

“Everything of significance in my life has happened that way—by pure hazard.” —Henry Miller https://t.co/gJxeXfjmfN

“I wish I could be as free ranging and Dionysian as Ginsberg.” —Henri Cole https://t.co/sELNHkp6LA

“I am not very bright or very witty or very inventive after the sun goes down.” —Toni Morrison https://t.co/inxSU0Qf7x

“I was very careful not to tell my students to only write about what you know, because I couldn’t define what they knew. That’s where the question really begins. How to define what you know.” —Paula Fox https://t.co/9ITOQazSoU

“I feel like I could see clearly what I’d already glimpsed in Cervantes—that madness, risk, and wisdom could go together.” —Enrique Vila-Matas https://t.co/cLoAzExFXZ

A writer takes earnest measures to secure his solitude and then finds endless ways to squander it.” —Don DeLillo https://t.co/uu005I6eBm

“My response to any form of excitement about reading is to want to write.” —A. S. Byatt https://t.co/eNdXO9Umm7

“I am very good at complaining.” —Lydia Davis https://t.co/h2Ow5kqlEe

“All obsessions are extreme metaphors waiting to be born.” —J. G. Ballard https://t.co/JmstFFrjSR

“A good writer is always lucky. Very lucky.” —Dag Solstad https://t.co/q1KjwTB3GD

“If I had not existed, someone else would have written me, Hemingway, Dostoyevsky, all of us.” —William Faulkner https://t.co/rtQDbAjae6

“If I have an ethics, it is simply to be true.” —Henri Cole https://t.co/sELNHkp6LA

“Good editors are really the third eye. Cool. Dispassionate. They don’t love you or your work; for me that is what is valuable—not compliments.” —Toni Morrison https://t.co/inxSU0Qf7x

“Hemingway described literary New York as a bottle full of tapeworms trying to feed on each other.” —John Updike https://t.co/VZAp3R1iQm

“I’ve seen academic life destroy the best writers of my generation.” —Susan Sontag https://t.co/GBs9EYQjHt

“I figured, I can’t sell this understanding, or smoke it, so I will write a novel.” —Robert Stone https://t.co/QSh9ivyJsA

“Publication was a form of punishment.” —Enrique Vila-Matas https://t.co/cLoAzExFXZ

“I find what happens in reality very interesting and I don’t find a great need to make up things.” —Lydia Davis https://t.co/h2Ow5kqlEe

“Art has no concern with peace and contentment.” —William Faulkner https://t.co/rtQDbAjae6

“I persevere, as any poet must, in the face of obstacles.” —Henri Cole https://t.co/sELNHkp6LA

“I started writing by doing small related things but not the thing itself, circling it and getting closer.” —Amy Hempel https://t.co/EGOuAIW6Er

“A good writer is always lucky. Very lucky.” —Dag Solstad https://t.co/q1KjwTB3GD

“I’m never happier than when I can write about draining swimming pools and abandoned hotels.” —J. G. Ballard https://t.co/JmstFFqM3j