Wordcrafts - Writing and Editing

"The best way to become acquainted with a subject is to write a book about it."

"The two most engaging powers of an author are to make new things familiar and familiar things new."

"The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shockproof shit detector. This is the writer's radar and all great writers have had it."

"Life can't ever really defeat a writer who is in love with writing, for life itself is a writer's lover until death - fascinating, cruel, lavish, warm, cold, treacherous, constant."

"The writer writes in order to teach himself, to understand himself, to satisfy himself; the publishing of his ideas, though it brings gratification, is a curious anticlimax."

"A writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people."

"A story should have a beginning, a middle, and an end... but not necessarily in that order."

"Writing is both mask and unveiling."

"I think it's bad to talk about one's present work, for it spoils something at the root of the creative act. It discharges the tension."

"Most editors are failed writers - but so are most writers."